MOSCOW, July 5 - RAPSI. The Supreme Commercial Court registered the National Reserve Bank's (NRB) appeal to reconsider $10.8 million lawsuit dismissal in compensation for reputation damage from the Federal Security Service, the court told the Russian Legal Information Agency on Thursday.
The NRB is controlled by Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev.
The bank has thus challenged the judgments passed by the Moscow Commercial Court and an appeals court.
The bank believes that Federal Security Service Cpt. Evgeny Volotovsky distributed defamatory information about the bank in a report. Volotovsky said the NRB illegally drained funds from the Rossiysky Capital bank. In its lawsuit, the bank demanded that the Federal Security Service publicly refute the information.
In November 2010, police officers searched the bank's head office and two subsidiary offices and seized their documents. The search was part of a criminal case on the embezzlement of 5 billion rubles ($169 million) from Rossiysky Capital, which was reorganized by the NRB. Lebedev estimated the damage from the investigation at 1.5 billion rubles ($50.8 million).
The bank said information about the searches was leaked to the press and the bank failed to regain its clients' trust, which it had earned over the 15 years of its operation.