Communicated on 2 November 2017
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 22649/08
OOO REGNUM
against Russia
lodged on 10 April 2008
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant company is an electronic periodic media registered under Russian law. In November 2005 it published on its website a series of articles covering an incident of mercury poisoning following consumption of a branded apple juice. The articles referred to the information obtained from the Main Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Regional Department of the Federal Service for Supervision over Customer Protection. The company producing the juice brought proceeding with a view to protect its business reputation against the applicant company. Following the examination of the case by commercial courts in three instances, on 10 October 2007, the Federal Commercial Court of the Moscow Circuit found for the claimant, ordered that the applicant company publish a retraction and delete the articles from its website, and awarded the claimant 1,000,000 Russian roubles in non‑pecuniary damages. On 19 December 2007 the Supreme Commercial Court of Russia dismissed the applicant company’s request for supervisory review.
QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicant company’s right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention on account the commercial courts’ decisions? In particular, did the domestic courts give relevant and sufficient reasons to justify the alleged interference with the applicant company’s right? Did they apply standards which were in conformity with the principles embodied in Article 10 of the Convention? Did they base themselves on an acceptable assessment of the relevant facts (see OOO Izdatelskiy Tsentr Kvartirnyy Ryad v. Russia, no. 39748/05, § 46, 25 April 2017, and Terentyev v. Russia, no. 25147/09, § 24, 26 January 2017)? Having regard to its size, was the award in favour of the claimant “necessary in a democratic society” (see Tolstoy Miloslavsky v. the United Kingdom, 13 July 1995, § 55, Series A no. 316‑B)?
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