The owner of Bitcoininfo.ru has won an appeal against a ruling to block the cryptocurrency website. A court in Saint Petersburg has decided that access should be restored and that Nikolay Tonkoshkurov should be compensated for the unlawful actions of the prosecutors and judges who presided over the case.
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Prosecutor’s Office to Pay Compensation
Oktyabrsky District Court in Russia’s Northern Capital has ordered the regional Prosecutor’s Office to pay Tonkoshkurov 150,000 rubles ($2,250), Bitnovosti reported, quoting the Digital Rights Center. The law firm specializes in providing legal assistance to companies with online operations. Tonkoshkurov was represented by the firm’s lawyers and the legal team of Roskomsvoboda, an organization that fights against Russian internet censorship.
The legal saga began when prosecutors in Saint Petersburg asked a local court to block Bitcoininfo.ru. They argued that the website posed a threat because of its cryptocurrency-related content. Access to the platform was restricted in 2016, when the Vyborgsky District Court determined that it had violated the “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation” law by publishing materials about Bitcoin. So-called “money surrogates” are illegal in the country, the court argued.
The domain administrator appealed against the decision because he had not been subpoenaed by the local court, which violated his rights. His appeal was rejected and the case was then taken to the Supreme Court in Moscow, which ordered the Saint Petersburg City Court to hear the appeal again. The city court overturned the decision of the Vyborgsky District Court to block the Bitcoininfo.ru website. In the latest ruling on the case, the Oktyabrsky District Court has ordered that the site should be restored and his owner compensated.
