MOSCOW, June 28 - RAPSI. The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals has upheld the dismissal of billionaire Alexander Lebedev and his NRB bank's defamation suit against the Kommersant newspaper's publisher, the papers representative told the Russian Legal Information Agency in court.

The claimants sought to recover 11 million rubles ($356,200) in compensation for moral damages.

The Moscow Commercial Court dismissed Lebedevs lawsuit against Kommersant in November 2011. On Thursday, the court dismissed the banks appeal against the decision and the judicial act came into effect.

NRB and Lebedev filed four defamation lawsuits against Kommersant. Their actions were provoked by the paper's allegations that NRB was under investigation due to the embezzlement of public funds allocated for the Rosiisky Capital bank's bailout. The lawsuit was based on a March 4 story titled "NRB returns profits to shareholders."

NRB's lawyers said the false information negatively affected the bank's reputation and requested that Kommersant publish a refutation and pay 10 million rubles ($324,000) to the bank and 1 million rubles ($32,400) to Lebedev in compensation.

Kommersant called the claims unfounded as the "disputed passages lack discrediting information."

Three other lawsuits provoked by Kommersant articles mentioning the criminal case were likewise turned down by the Moscow Commercial Court on similar grounds.

According to the NRB's website, the National Reserve Corporation controlled by Lebedev holds 59.83 percent of shares in the bank. Lebedev personally holds 4.58 percent of the shares, his son Yevgeny 13.79 percent, VEB Capital Chief Yury Kudimov 18.38 percent, and the remaining 2.74 percent belong to the Federal Agency for State Property Management.