An arbitration court has upheld an appeal by the newspaper Vedomosti against the ruling by a lower court which refused to institute proceedings against RBC for reprinting a number of Vedomosti materials on its Quote.ru website without attributing authorship. However, the court has significantly reduced the punitive damages to be paid to Vedomosti for copyright infringement: instead of the $10.5 million originally sought Vedomosti will receive only $10,500. Vedomosti PR manager has said that the amount of punitive damages is not the main thing. The enforcement of intellectual property rights in Russia is what really matters. The arbitration court rejected a similar counterclaim by RBC, in which the information agency accused the newspaper of plagiarism.

Golden Telecom has announced its acquisition of a controlling stake in the Moscow-based Ethernet provider Corbina. It is thought that Corbina may help GT resolve its difficulties with last-mile access to subscribers and with the installation of hardware for the Wi-Fi network which Golden Telecom is now building. Corbina itself will be able to give up plans to build its own Wi-Fi network and instead focus on providing Ethernet access services. A key condition of the deal is that Corbina will establish a presence in international markets through an IPO. Under the terms of the deal, owners of 51% of Corbina shares will receive 8% of Golden Telecom shares and $10 million, which puts the current value of the company at $280 million.