MOSCOW, October 5 - RAPSI. The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals has upheld the decision to reclaim 16.387 hectares of land in western Moscow from Setunskaya real estate company in the lawsuit filed by the Federal Agency of State Property Management, the court told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com).

Thus the appellate instance has dismissed the appeals filed by Setunskaya and Matveyevskoe against the Moscow Commercial Court's ruling in June to reclaim the land in full.

Yelena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and Russia's richest woman, is Setunskaya's major shareholder. The Matveyevskoye company is a third party in the dispute.

The Moscow Commercial Court prohibited Setunskaya from performing any actions "related to the disposal or the encumbrance of the land in question." The court ruled to seize the land on June 21. Interim relief was enforced on June 27 at the request of the Federal Agency of State Property Management.

Setunskaya is a subsidiary of the major Russian real estate company Inteco, which has frequently been accused of dominating the Moscow real estate market.

Inteco was previously owned by Baturina.

The Agency said that part of the land plot overlaps an area reserved by a 1993 presidential decree. The area was set aside for the construction of diplomatic facilities.

Baturina purchased the land from the company in 2003.

Setunskaya challenged the lawsuit, claiming that Matveyevskoye had acquired the right to the land before the decree was signed.