ST. PETERSBURG, August 16 - RAPSI. The St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region Commercial Court has registered an appeal filed by the Federal Antimonopoly Service's local branch against the dismissal of the decision that major local museums broke competition law, according to the court's official website.

The watchdog is disputing a court decision issued on July 4.

The St. Petersburg State Museum of History was a plaintiff in the case. Saint Isaac's Cathedral and the Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof estate museums were third parties to the dispute.

The watchdog found that the museums violated competition law in December and served as the defendant in the case.

The case was initiated by a businessman whom the museums prevented from entering into excursion services contracts. The denials were made in part because the museum's contractual campaigns had ended for 2011, they said. The museums added that the businessman could not be a party to such contracts and had to act as a tourist agent under agreement with a tour operator.

The watchdog considered the arguments groundless as the law does not ban individual entrepreneurs from conducting excursion activities.

The regulator also holds that the individual was unable to learn via open sources the timeframe of the museum's contractual campaigns, which was one reason for the denial.