PRESS: Regional court refuses to block iHerb apps in Russia

MOSCOW, Aug 20 (PRIME) -- A district court of Ulyanovsk, a city in the European part of Russia, has dismissed a lawsuit of local prosecutors seeking to ban sales of U.S. marketplace iHerb in the country via Google Play and App Store, business daily Kommersant reported on Tuesday.

“We’re satisfied that the arguments concerning mobile application iHerb were heard and adopted by the court,” said Roman Zaitsev, a partner of the Moscow office of law firm Dentons, which represents iHerb.

The second lawsuit regarding blocking of website iHerb has not been considered yet.

According to researcher Mediascope, iHerb’s audience in Russia counted 1.7 million people per month as of the end of 2018, and its application on Google Play was downloaded more than 5 million times.

The argument was initiated by Alexander Zhestkov, who heads a union of supplements makers.

In early 2019, Zhestkov acting as an individual asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to consider a case against iHerb because the online store sells supplements and nutrient additives that fail to comply with the local technical regulation. As a result, such products could be classified as banned for sale in Russia.

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