OOO MEMO v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT ‘The officials of the Administration came down on the Mayor’s Office, saying, “How come you did not support the local producer!” It appears to me that the Mayor’s Office’s refusal to do business with the Volzhanin factory was one of the main reasons of the regional officials’ anger’, noted Mr [S.]. In conclusion the expert [said that he] could not exclude that ‘the suspension of allocation of subsidies to the City of Volgograd from the regional budget was an act of revenge for the lost call for tender’. Kavkazskiy Uzel reported earlier that the members of the [Legislative Assembly] of the Volgograd Region sent a letter to the Administration of the Volgograd Region with a request to revoke the order ... to suspend ... allocation of subsidies from the regional budget to the City of Volgograd... The regional authorities, in their turn, explain this step by the municipal authorities’ failure to respect the limits of expenditure set by the regional authorities to finance the municipal governance activities. The members of [the Legislative Assembly of the Volgograd Region] called into doubt the lawfulness of that decision. [They] asked the Governor [of the Volgograd Region] to suspend the impugned order and to ensure its compliance with the federal method of development of inter-budget relations, with due regard to calculation and substantiation by [the Mayor’s Office of Volgograd].” III. DEFAMATION PROCEEDINGS 9. On 2 October 2008 the Administration of the Volgograd Region brought civil defamation proceedings against the applicant company and the editorial board of Kavkazskiy Uzel seeking a retraction of the following statements. (a) “... 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. ... 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.” (b) “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.” (c) “The officials of the Administration came down on the Mayor’s Office, saying, ‘How come you did not support the local producer!’ It appears to me that the Mayor’s Office’s refusal to do business with the Volzhanin factory was one of the main reasons of the regional officials’ anger.” (d) “... the suspension of allocation of subsidies to the City of Volgograd from the regional budget was an act of revenge for the lost call for tender.” 10. The claimant contested the impugned statements as false, complaining they had been disseminated as Mr S.’s opinion and had tarnished the Administration’s “business reputation” (деловая репутация). The Administration of the Volgograd Region insisted that they had not put any pressure on the municipal authorities and had not lobbied the Volzhanin bus 3