Business News Media filed a lawsuit seeking 282 million rubles ($10.55 million) in damages December 12, 2005 against RBC Information Systems for alleged copyright violation, saying RBC had used over 100 articles from the newspaper without authorization and without any reference to the original source. On Monday, the court completed preliminary hearings.
The consideration of this case was suspended in January 2006 and was resumed only recently.
In early August, RBC filed a countersuit worth 286 million rubles ($10.7 million) for alleged copyright violation. RBC accused Vedomosti of illegally distributing articles taken from its commercial newswire in 2002-2005.
Earlier, Mikhail Dubik, general director of Business News Media, said RBC had filed the law suit to distract public opinion from his company's proceedings against the news agency, and delay the trial.
"Their goal is to file a 'mirror suit' and make readers believe that it matches the Vedomosti suit against them," Dubik said, adding that RBC had no chance of winning the countersuit.
He said Vedomosti had always referred to RBC as a source when it published its materials.
"The law suit refers to short news articles that were used in the News in Brief section [of the newspaper], and Vedomosti always attributed each news piece to its source without attempting to claim copyrights on them," Dubik said.
Business News Media is owned by Pearson (publisher of The Financial Times), Dow Jones (publisher of The Wall Street Journal), and Independent Media (owned by Sanoma the WSOY media holding). Vedomosti is thought to have an annual turnover of $50 million.
Moscow-based RBC Information Systems has a capitalization of $760 million and the group also comprises the RBC TV business television channel and e-media.
