MOSCOW, March 28 - RAPSI. The Moscow Commercial Court has set for May 16 the primary hearings of the Auchan retail group's defamation lawsuit against News Media.

The lawsuit centers on an article about the tragedy in a Moscow family.

Two young girls reportedly died when the whole family suffered from food poisoning after eating food they had bought at an Auchan store.

The family of four was hospitalized due to food poisoning on January 19. The children died later at the hospital on January 24. Investigators opened a criminal case. The mother of the deceased children was soon discharged from the hospital, while her husband remained there until the doctors were able to make a diagnosis.

Forensic scientists failed to find any toxics in the blood of the dead girls.

The article titled, "Girls Get Poisoned with Products Purchased in Auchan," described the tragedy and stated that scientists claimed the victims suffered from food poisoning.

The preliminary hearings into the case were held on Wednesday. Auchan said it wants to attract Yelena Mikhaylova, the article's author, to the case as a codefendant. However, News Media said the name is a collective pseudonym of the portal's employees.

Since the case did not affect anyone's rights except for News Media and Auchan, the judge said the case is ready for primary hearings and set the date to hold them.

The Auchan international retail group was established in 1961 by Gerard Mulliez. It runs over 1,200 outlets in 13 countries. Auchan has operated in Russia since 2002, where it has 25 Auchan megastores, 13 Auchan City megastores, two Auchan Garden stores and two Raduga (Rainbow) stores as of June 2010.

News Media is the founder of the lifenews.ru portal.