MOSCOW, February 27 - RAPSI. A federal commercial court will hear on March 22 the tax service's appeal against the dismissal of its 3.5 million fine imposed against the Atac retail chain, the court told the Russian Legal Information Service (RAPSI/rapsinews.ru) on Monday.

The lawsuit says the tax inspectorate audited the plaintiff on the grounds of its VAT tax return for the fourth quarter of 2010. The inspectorate ordered the chain to submit a number of documents within 10 days on January 24, 2011.

The primary court decided that the request for documents lacked details and the exact number of demanded document.

The tax inspectorate decided on January 27 to extend the document submission date by five days. However, the court ruled that the extension was too small taking into account the volume of required documents and the lack of details.

Atac submitted scanned copies of the documents in time, the court said in its judgment.

However, the tax inspectorate reported on May 4 that Atac failed to submit 514,200 required documents and fined it 102.8 million rubles ($3.5 million) for alleged tax offenses.

Atac comprises the Atac and Simply Market supermarket chains and is an Auchan subsidiary.