“Take me out of the game”: how authorities and businessmen sued the opposition for nine million rubles

Traffic jams, stains on Sobyanin's tiles, reworking of the National Guard and crowds of people in the Moscow metro - according to the city authorities and businessmen, the organizers of the 2019 summer protests are to blame for everything. On January 23, the court considered the last lawsuit against the oppositionists, who will now have to pay more than nine million rubles. OVD-Info analyzes each case and explains why the defendants consider all the charges unfair.

1,032,995,490 rubles and 78 kopecks — this is how much the Moscow authorities and businessmen tried to sue from nine politicians and activists who are now called the organizers of the 2019 summer protests in the capital. For three weeks, the townspeople took to the streets and demanded the admission of unregistered candidates for elections to the Moscow City Duma. As a result, more than 2,600 detentions, the “Moscow case” and lawsuits against the opposition, record in terms of the amount. So far, the plaintiffs have managed to sue less than one percent of the desired amount - 9,434,858 rubles and 80 kopecks. Three more claims in the amount of 10.5 million rubles are planned to be considered by the courts in February 2020.

The same persons appear as defendants in almost all lawsuits: politician Alexei Navalny, coordinator of his Moscow headquarters Oleg Stepanov, head of the investigation department of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) Georgy Alburov, as well as unregistered candidates for the Moscow City Duma Lyubov Sobol, Ivan Zhdanov, Vladimir Milov, Ilya Yashin, Yulia Galyamina and Alexander Solovyov.

According to the plaintiffs, these people organized protests, so they should be held accountable for their consequences. The defendants themselves believe that it is wrong to call them organizers. The head of the legal department of FBK, Vyacheslav Gimadi, explained that in order to obtain such a status, one of them had to submit a notification about the event, and not just call for participation in a tweet or post.

As . lawyers noted in court, in any case, there is a position of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), according to which the organizer of the action cannot be held liable for damage caused by the participant of the action

The very fact of the damage is also doubtful. “In order to prove the damage, certain documents are needed. - explains the coordinator of the Moscow headquarters of Navalny Oleg Stepanov. — There was none of that. We ask: “But how did you calculate this amount?” They say: “Well, listen, we decided this way. That you bothered me, I didn’t count on anything, they gave it to us in the accounting department.

“What is the purpose of these lawsuits? To make it so that the opposition could not work,” Stepanov believes. - There is one simple desire: to punish, to remove from the game, to take revenge on those who play some role in the opposition. Make sure that at least in the near future they do not do anything terrible. But they only thought how to fight off the bailiffs and what to do so that their car, TV or cat would not be confiscated. True, there is not much to seize: I have a one-room apartment in Mitino, Vladimir Milov has a two-room apartment in Yasenevo, and Navalny also has some kind of small apartment in Maryino. We are not some owners of huge wealth.”

Moscow Prosecutor's Office

The Moscow prosecutor's office stated that it had received material damage due to the involvement of additional forces and means: the money was spent on the salaries of the National Guard and fuel for transporting security officials and detainees.

The prosecutor's office wanted 4.936 million rubles from the opposition: more than 2.5 million for the action on July 27 and 2.379 million for the action on August 3. The second lawsuit concerned only Lyubov Sobol and Georgy Alburov: all the other defendants were already serving their arrest when it became known about a new protest action.

After the lawsuit was filed, the prosecutor's office demanded that the defendants' apartments be arrested in order to "guarantee a refund." The court refused to comply with this requirement and recovered half the amount claimed - 1.2 million and 1.1 million, respectively.

Vyacheslav Gimadi, head of the FBK's legal service, claims that the strengthening that the prosecutor's office is talking about is already included in the budget. the same thing in an interview with BFM Georgy Alburov said : “They have written that they are entitled to so much for reinforcements, so much for night service, and so on. And to collect from us what we actually paid for in taxes is strange.”

MIA

The Ministry of Internal Affairs, like the prosecutor's office, explains its claim by attracting additional forces for the duration of the action. True, he wants from the oppositionists almost twice as much as the prosecutor's office - 10.2 million rubles. Requirements have already been reduced from 17.891 million to 9.726 million, and then raised again. More than half of the declared amount, the ministry requires separately from Alburov and Sobol for the share on August 3.

The court has not yet considered both lawsuits, the next hearings are expected on February 13.

"Mosgortrans"

On the evening of July 26, the authorities fenced off Tverskaya Street. On July 27, before the start of the action, several lanes of Tverskaya Street were forced by paddy wagons and city buses, and the alleys leading to the street were blocked . By the official start of the action, several fences on Tverskaya were knocked down , and people went out onto the carriageway of the street, and four hours later - onto the Garden Ring .

On that day, many Muscovites did not wait for their bus. At least, this is what claims . the state unitary enterprise (GUP) Mosgortrans, which is responsible for transportation by ground public transport,

The company decided that the organizers of the action were to blame for the bus delays and downtime, and filed a lawsuit for 1,218,591 rubles and 58 kopecks - Mosgortrans assessed the losses incurred in this amount. Without going to court, according to representatives of the company, the drivers of late buses would have to pay this money.

At the same time, by the time the protesters first entered the roadway, Alexei Navalny and Oleg Stepanov had already been under arrest for four days. Ilya Yashin, Ilya Zhdanov, Yulia Galyamina were at the police departments, Lyubov Sobol was in court, Alexander Solovyov was in a paddy wagon, and Vladimir Milov was in the studio of the Navalny Live YouTube channel.

Another claim by Mosgortrans demanded 657,000 rubles from Sobol and Alburov for the August 3 share. At the same time, both were detained even before the official start of the event, and, according to OVD-Info, the protesters did not come out on the road at all that day - only the security forces blocked the traffic.

The court satisfied both claims in full except for 58 kopecks. Mosgortrans does not publish financial statements in the public domain, therefore, as noted Vladimir Milov's lawyer Valentina Frolova in court, one cannot even be sure of the existence of losses. The plaintiffs did not bring evidence of the claimed amount to the court, citing "a large amount of paperwork."

As found out Meduza , the lawsuit mentioned routes that were not even in the protest zone. For example, buses No. 205 and 157 do not reach the Garden Ring at all, but the company estimated the damage from their downtime at 221,000 rubles. According to the publication, if all such routes were removed from the calculations, the amount of the claim would be reduced to 775,510 rubles.

"Car roads"

The State Budgetary Institution (GBU) Automobile Roads is responsible for the repair and cleaning of Moscow roads, as well as the care of green areas and the improvement of public spaces. The company estimated its damage from the action on July 27 at 11.468 million rubles. Of these, Avtodor planned to spend more than 10.5 million rubles on “liquidation of damages”: according to the plaintiff , the protesters trampled over 5,000 square meters of lawns, broke more than 3,000 bushes, damaged 5,520 flowers and 26 benches, painted “small architectural forms”, polluted the parapets and left behind "numerous stains" on the tiles. their words Representatives of the company confirmed with black-and-white photographs of close-ups of grass.

Photo of a trampled lawn, presented by the State Budgetary Institution Highways in a lawsuit against Solovyov, Yashin, Navalny and Co. pic.twitter.com/vWQIdOR9Tb

— Badamshin (@badamshin_s) September 11, 2019

According to the lawsuit, the company spent another 434,000 rubles on additional street cleaning and 235,000 on blocking the streets with sweepers. In court, a representative of Avtodor said that Pyotr Biryukov, the deputy mayor of Moscow, asked to provide the equipment to the security forces.

At the trial, it turned out that more than half of the damage claimed by the company was not supported by documentation. As a result, the court recovered from the defendants three times less than the amount claimed - 3.402 million rubles.

The second lawsuit of Highways is related to the action on August 3rd. The company demanded 3.022 million rubles from Alburov and Sobol for 800 square meters of “trodden” lawn in Novopushkinsky Square and 443 broken cotoneaster bushes. At the same time, the lawn was replaced as part of the replacement of lawns throughout Moscow. The plaintiff's claims also included reimbursement of expenses for the provision of Avtodor buses for the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for shares, including the cost of fuel, oil and the salaries of drivers. The court also satisfied this claim only partially, recovering 1.561 million rubles from Alburov and Sobol.

The defendants themselves in both cases insisted that the police and the National Guard inflicted the most damage at the rallies: they are the ones who set up barriers, bring equipment, block the streets, walk on the lawns and even on the flowers. Lawyer Andrei Tamurka noted that the charter of Highways does not contain a clause on work at public events, so the organization should not have provided its equipment to the security forces at all.

Moscow subway

During the days of protests, due to the blocking of ground traffic, many citizens switched to underground transport. The company claims that this led to losses: several employees had to work on their day off. The defendants believe that the increased number of passengers should, on the contrary, bring more profit to the metro. In addition, according to MBKh Media, the orders to involve employees in work on July 27 are dated July 19 - on this day it was not yet known about the rally.

The court has already recovered 54,747 rubles and 80 kopecks from the leaders of the July 27 protest in favor of the metro. The lawsuit against Alburov and Sobol for 311 thousand rubles per share has not yet been considered on August 3, the next meeting is expected on February 17.

Restaurant "Armenia"

On July 26, the police came to the "Armenia" restaurant on Tverskaya Street. As the manager told Znak.com, the security forces demanded that tables and chairs be brought inside from the street veranda. They explained their request by the forthcoming protest action. Nobody forced the restaurant to close, but the policeman said that the employees would have to "act according to the circumstances."

On July 27, "Armenia" closed at 10 am due to a police cordon: the management considered that guests would not be physically able to enter the restaurant. At trial, the plaintiff claimed that the doors remained closed until eight o'clock in the evening.

Ankor LLC, which owns the Armenia restaurant and store, filed a lawsuit against the oppositionists for 551,847 rubles and 40 kopecks. Of this amount, 155,495 rubles is the average Saturday income of the restaurant, and 396,352 is the cost of a banquet canceled due to the closure.

The defendants, in their defense, noted that the restaurant was closed due to the actions of the police, not the activists. The beginning of the rally was announced at 14:00, and at 10:00 in the morning there was not a single protester on Tverskaya. Neither the security forces nor the activists forced "Armenia" to close - it was a personal decision of the leadership.

Oleg Stepanov noted that after public events, the protesters, on the contrary, often go to the nearest cafe to discuss what happened. “If they don’t go to them because they themselves decided to close, it’s hard to call it damage,” the activist concluded.

The defendants also complained about the lack of evidence - in the case there are not even documents confirming the very fact of the restaurant's closure. Yulia Galyamina's defender Andrei Tamurka at the meeting generally stated that "Armenia" was open around noon: he remembers how he took coffee to go there.

The court partially satisfied Ankor's claim and recovered 241,520 rubles from the defendants - slightly less than half of the amount claimed. "Armenia" became the first and so far the only private business that managed to sue money from the leaders of the summer protests. True, this had a strong impact on the company's ratings: 1/5 on website the Restoran.ru website , 2/10 on the Afisha , 3.5/5 on TripAdvisor , 3.8/5 on Google. three days after the lawsuit was filed , and at the time of the release of the text, the restaurant completely closed access to its group on the social network. On Facebook, the rating of “Armenia” fell from five to two points

Two weeks before the lawsuit was filed, Ankor LLC received a state contract from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to Znak.com, the company hosted a luncheon for 13 children of "Vietnam Ministry of Public Security personnel who died or were injured in the line of duty."

"M.Taxi"

“On July 27, in the city of Moscow, there was a delay in the movement of transport taxis and an anomalous decrease in the number of orders for taxi services, which caused losses to the LLC in the amount of 333,787 rubles,” says one of the claims of the M.Taxi Communications company.

The company went to court immediately with three claims, the total amount of which reached 787,304 rubles. The first claim for the amount of 333,787 rubles was related to the action on July 27th. The second demanded from Alburov, Sobol, Solovyov, Galyamina and Yashin 259,146 rubles per share on 3 August. And according to the third, the company hoped to receive 194,371 rubles from Boris Zolotarevsky, the head of the campaign headquarters of Ivan Zhdanov. The latter is likely related to the agreed-upon rally on August 10, from the stage of which Zolotarevsky called on the protesters to “walk” to the presidential administration building on Kitay-Gorod.

all three lawsuits All three lawsuits were filed with the court on the same day, and the court dismissed due to several failures of M.Taxi representatives to appear in court. The company did not appeal this decision. It was not possible to find out from the representatives of the organization why the plaintiffs did not attend a single meeting: the M.Taxi employee suggested that the editors of OVD-Info send a request by paper letter and refused to talk by phone and e-mail. After that, he asked: “What, the question has not been settled yet? The case was closed."

The ratings of M. Taxi at the time of the publication of the text were 2.5 on Yandex and 1.1 on Google. True, not all negative assessments are associated with a lawsuit against the opposition: mostly clients talk about deception on the part of drivers, and former drivers about deception on the part of the employer.

The name of the general director and owner of the company is Vasily Saushkin. “A business technologist in the field of science and innovation, a patriot and an enthusiast for the development of Russian industry,” this is how the businessman introduces himself on social networks. In addition to M.Taxi, Saushkin owns another 50 companies. According to Open Media, some of them regularly receive state contracts and work with organizations associated with the Moscow authorities. For example, TsTO KKT-Service supplied cash equipment to Mosgortrans and Mosenergosbyt, BSV-Rusafarm supplied medicines to the Moscow Health Department, and the cleaning company Service-Partner received orders from the Oryol prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Noodle "Pull-pull"

One of the noodle networks "Pull-Pull" is located on the Central Market - 200 meters from Trubnaya Square, where the first rallies in support of independent candidates for the Moscow City Duma began. The owner of the institution, Vitaly Tolkalov, filed a lawsuit against Alburov and Sobol in the amount of 100 thousand rubles. the claim The court did not satisfy .

The details of the lawsuit are unknown, but it is likely related to the losses of the noodle shop on August 3rd. Before the action, the director of the Central Market, Yevgeny Morgachev , told TASS that the market would not work that day due to the experience on July 27. According to the director, then the market suffered losses in the amount of 100-150 thousand rubles. At the same time, Morgachev estimated the amount that the damage to the market could reach due to the closure on August 3 at two million rubles.

The lawsuit was reflected in the rating of the noodle shop on the Internet: 1.1 on Yandex , 1.2 on Facebook .

IP Hristov Yaroslav Maratovich

The individual entrepreneur Yaroslav Khristov filed a lawsuit against Alburov and Sobol on the same day as Tolkalov, on September 2. Christ's claims and the amount of the claim are unknown. It is not even clear what business he is running: in the Unified Register of Individual Entrepreneurs with such a full name there is only an individual entrepreneur in the Kursk region.

Probably, the application was drawn up with violations - the court returned the claim four days after filing.

"Fly Auto"

Fly Auto, a premium car rental company, has filed a record-breaking claim in the amount of one billion rubles. Of these, according to the company itself, 410.7 million rubles were lost profits from orders canceled by customers, 200 million - damage to business reputation, 185.3 million - fines from customers for not providing cars, 17 million - additional fuel costs. These claims are related to the blocking of the streets by the police and the exit of the protesters to the roadway.

At another 187 million rubles, the company estimates damage to cars during the August 10 protests. In an interview with RBC, the owner of Fly Auto, Dmitry Leukhin, explained that after the action, some cars had scratches and glass damage. Whether the company can somehow confirm its words is unknown.

as a defendant The businessman chose the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) , and the Dozhd TV channel as a third party. According to the businessman, FBK organized the action, and Dozhd provided him with informational support. Possibly, the choice of Leukhin is due to the fact that Sobol, Alburov and Zhdanov are employees of the FBK, and Navalny is the founder of the fund. Dozhd really covered every protest action, but did it on a par with many other media outlets.

The court returned the claim due to violations. As follows from the court ruling , the company did not prove the presence of cars in the fleet, the presence of orders on July 27 and their cancellation, as well as fuel costs in the amount of more than 17 million rubles.

Fly Auto, like most of the companies that filed claims, fulfills government orders. Kommersant about this told Vladimir Garchu, co-owner of the ProstoProkat group of companies, which includes Fly Auto, . At the same time, the businessman specified that, as far as he knows, the company did not work with the Moscow authorities or organizations related to them.

After the lawsuit was returned, Leukhin stated that he would not file it again. The businessman explained this by saying that the company had already "resolved the issue."

What's next

According to the coordinator of Navalny's Moscow headquarters, Oleg Stepanov, at the time of the release of the text, the defendants had already paid more than 4.5 million according to the decisions that had entered into force. Of these, more than one and a half million were collected thanks to donations. The rest of the amount was given by the supporters to the defendants irrevocably or on short-term loans.

“Of course, we will win these lawsuits. We will not win in Russia, because it is obvious that our courts are not independent,” Stepanov says, referring to the European Court of Human Rights. - When we win, this money will return and will be spent for good purposes. We don't ask them for ourselves."