OOO MEMO v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT registered under Russian law which is devoted to the political and human rights situation in the south of Russia, including the Volgograd Region. 6. In 2008 the executive authority of the Volgograd Region (“the Administration of the Volgograd Region”), registered as a legal person in the Unified State Register of Legal Persons, suspended the transfer of the funds allocated as a subsidy to the Town of Volgograd in the amount of 5,294,000 Russian roubles (approximately 145,000 euros) for the reason that its budget limit for subsidies had already been exceeded. It appears that the lawfulness of the decision to suspend the transfer was widely discussed by the public in the Volgograd Region. II. IMPUGNED ARTICLE 7. On 1 July 2008 Kavkazskiy Uzel published an article written by its correspondent, Mr Ya., on the basis of his interview with Mr S., an expert of the Fund for the Development of Information Policy («Фонд развития информационной политики»). 8. The article was titled “[Mr S]: the Mayor’s Office of Volgograd fell out with the Administration of the Volgograd Region over a bus factory” and read as follows: “Interests of officials of the Administration of the Volgograd Region and of the management of the Volzhanin bus factory could be the reason behind a financial conflict between the Office of the Mayor of Volgograd and the Administration of the Volgograd Region. The above conclusion has been reached by an expert of the Fund for the Development of Information Policy, Mr [S.], in his interview with a correspondent of Kavkazskiy Uzel. ‘In my view, there are two main reasons for the financial conflict that stemmed from the order of the Administration of the Volgograd Region to suspend allocation of subsidies from the regional budget to the City of Volgograd. As you remember, the amount totalled 5,294,000 roubles’, explained Mr [S.]. ‘Undoubtedly, the first reason is a political one. It is linked to the [results] of the regional elections [of 2 March 2008]. The second reason is not widely known. It is of a purely economic character’. Mr [S.] further stated that many officials of the Administration of the Volgograd Region are ‘impresarios’ of the Volzhanin bus factory. According to him, the Administration of the Volgograd Region gave a significant support to the bus factory for opening of its branch in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, which took place on 30 January 2008. ‘[The Governor of the Volgograd Region] himself attended the opening ceremony’, noted the expert. ‘Recently the Mayor’s Office held an open call for tender to buy buses. The Administration of the Volgograd Region lobbied the Volzhanin’s interests to win the call for tender, but it was won by another company which offered buses, each of which was almost 1,000,000 roubles cheaper [than the buses offered by the Volzhanin factory]. The total budget saving was significant. It amounted to 35,000,000 roubles’, said the expert. 2