London's Court of Appeal has rejected a request by Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich to dismiss a lawsuit filed by his former business partner Boris Berezovsky.
The court upheld the decision announced by Judge Sir Anthony Colman in March 2010 to set the date for preliminary hearings in the $3.3-billion compensation lawsuit by self-exiled Kremlin critic Berezovsky for October 3, 2011.
The lawyers of tycoon Abramovich have been trying to reject the claim against him by his fellow Russian billionaire Berezovsky as 'groundless,' but the British courts have refused to strike out the action.
Berezovsky intends to demand compensation from Abramovich for what he insists was a forced sale in 2000-2003 of shares in the Sibneft oil company, the Rusal aluminum company and the TV channel ORT at lower than market prices.
Both businessmen now live most of the time in Britain. In October 2007, British newspaper The Daily Mail reported that Berezovsky personally handed a subpoena in this case to Abramovich, when they met by chance in a London luxury clothing store on Sloane Street.
LONDON, February 23 (RIA Novosti)
