OOO MEMO v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT Town of Volgograd in connection with exceeding the limit of expenditure envisaged for the municipal authorities. Therefore, the fact of dissemination of the statements tarnishing the business reputation of the Administration of the Volgograd Region has been proved during the examination of the present dispute. On the other hand, the truthfulness of the disseminated statements has not been proved by the defendant, who neither submitted any evidence, nor requested the court to assist it in obtaining evidence.” 14. The District Court further ordered the applicant company, within thirty days after the judgment had become final, to publish on the Kavkazskiy Uzel website a retraction to the effect that the following statements were false and tarnished the claimant’s business reputation: “the Administration of the Volgograd Region [had] lobbied the Volzhanin factory to win the call for tenders”; “the suspension of allocation of subsidies to the Town of Volgograd from the regional budget [had been] an act of revenge for the lost call for tender”. The District Court also ordered the applicant company to publish the operative part of its judgment on the website. 15. The applicant company appealed, complaining that the District Court had not taken into account any of its arguments. It further maintained its arguments advanced before the District Court, arguing that the statements in issue had been value judgments and had not been formulated in absolute terms. It also noted that the article concerned a topical issue and that the author, being a professional journalist, had not overstepped the limits of permissible criticism. 16. On 16 July 2009 the Moscow City Court, summarily endorsing the reasoning of the District Court, upheld the judgment on appeal. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK I. DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE 17. The relevant domestic legal framework and practice have been described in Novaya Gazeta and Milashina v. Russia (no. 45083/06, §§ 35-38, 3 October 2017). 18. Article 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees freedom of thought and expression, and freedom of the media. 19. Article 152 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation as in force at the material time, prior to the amendments in force as of 1 October 2013, provided that a natural person (“a citizen”) could apply to a court requesting to order a retraction of statements («сведения») damaging to his or her honour, dignity or business reputation if the person who disseminated such statements did not prove their truthfulness. The aggrieved person could also claim compensation for [pecuniary] damage and non-pecuniary damage (“moral harm”) sustained as a result of the dissemination of such statements. Its paragraph 7 provided: “[n]orms of this Article on protection of the 5