MOSCOW — The Moscow arbitration court has decided to recover RUR270m (approx. USD9.58m) from Alfa Bank in favor of Kommersant Publishing House.

As reported earlier, Alfa Bank claimed that Kommersant had violated the Russian law on mass media by posting the article "Banking Crisis Comes Out on the Street," containing rumors presented as reliable information. The bank claimed that the posting of this article had resulted in customers withdrawing their deposits from Alfa Bank from July 7 to 12, 2004. The complainant was dissatisfied with information on queues in Alfa Bank offices and its name used alongside with Guta Bank.

At first, the court satisfied the bank's claim to recover RUR300m (approx. USD10.64m) in compensation for reputation damage and more than RUR20m (approx. USD709,470) in loss from Kommersant to Alfa Bank. However, later the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District partially satisfied Kommersant Publishing House's appeal and decreased the amount of compensation for reputation damage it had to pay to Alfa Bank to RUR30m (approx. USD1.06m).