MOSCOW, March 14 - RAPSI. The Moscow District Federal Commercial Court will hear on April 5 the National Reserve Bank's (NRB) appeal against the dismissal of its lawsuit to recover $11.8 million in reputation damages from the Federal Security Service (FSB).

The NRB is controlled by Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev

The bank challenged the judgments passed by the Moscow Commercial Court and an appellate court.

The bank believes that FSB Cpt. Volotovsky distributed defamatory information about the bank in his report. Volotvsky stated that NRB illegally drained funds from the Rossiysky Capital bank. In its suit, the bank demanded that the FSB publicly refute the information.

In November 2010, police officers searched the bank's head office and two subsidiary offices and seized their documents. The search was part of a criminal case over the embezzlement of five billion rubles ($169 million) from the Rossiysky Capital bank, reorganized by the NRB. Lebedev estimated the damage from the investigation at 1.5 billion rubles ($50.8 million).

The bank says the information about the searches was leaked into the press and the bank failed to regain its clients' trust, which it developed during the 15 years since its establishment.