UFA, June 27 (RAPSI) - The Commercial Court of the Republic of Bashkortostan on Tuesday refused to suspend proceedings in a 170.6-billion-ruble lawsuit (about $3 billion) lodged by Russia’s oil giant Rosneft against AFK Sistema holding company, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

AFK Sistema asked the court to put a stay on the proceedings until the end of trial in Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court over notarial certification of Bashneft top managers’ correspondence presented by Rosneft in evidence in its lawsuit.

The court also rejected another motion filed by the defendant seeking to bring the Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo) into the proceedings as a non-party intervener.

Earlier, Rosneft increased its damage claim in the suit against Sistema from 106.6 billion ($1.8 billion) to 170.6 billion rubles (about $3 billion at the current exchange rate). The plaintiff revised the claim damage upwards taking into account currency fluctuations, according to a company’s representative.

Press service of Rosneft has said previously that the lawsuit is connected with alleged siphoning of assets. Actions of AFK Sistema allegedly led to decrease of assets at this sum.

According to AFK Sistema, the plaintiffs’ demands are illegal and groundless.

Bashneft was controlled by the government of Russia’s Bashkortostan region until 2003, when a major stake was sold to companies affiliated with Ural Rakhimov, son of the former head of Bashkortostan Murtaza Rakhimov.

The company was privatized in 2009, when Russian oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Sistema gained control of it.

A court in Moscow ruled that Bashneft had been privatized in violation of law. The Prosecutor General's Office brought a suit to return a 71.6 percent stake in Bashneft to the government. The Moscow Commercial Court ruled on October 30, 2014, in favor of the Prosecutor General's Office.