Russian Supreme Court orders city court to review cryptocurrency website prohibition

The Vyborgsky District Court of St. Petersburg must review the appeal of BitcoinInfo regarding the state-wide block of this portal, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation stated. As a reminder, the owners of this website were not even invited at the corresponding court hearings and learned about the decision taken at the beginning of this year post factum.

This case has already been described by Bitnewstoday. In short, the cryptocurrency-related website called BitcoinInfo has been blocked due to the complaints of the local prosecutor’s office, its employees likely motivated by previous policy-defining statements of the Russian Attorney General’s office.

The rejection of the Supreme Court to explicitly clarify if digital currency-related websites are legal in Russia indicates that at the press time, there is no nationwide state-controlled initiative to declare such platforms illegal. Instead, the Supreme Court reverts the case back to the regional level. Note that if the Vyborgsky District Court reiterates its verdict, this case might serve as a catalyst for other regional courts blocking other cryptocurrency news websites by the request of the law enforcement. Although the common law does not exist in Russia de jure, Russian courts often prefer to stick to the previous practice de facto.

Image courtesy of TASS