Court preparing to start civil action against lawmaker Ponomaryov

Moscow's Gagarinsky court on Monday will interview the parties to the civil action by the Skolkovo foundation against State Duma lawmaker Ilya Ponomaryov. The court is expected to file the parties' refusal to conclude an amicable agreement and set the date for the hearing. Earlier, Skolkovo foundation director Viktor Vekselberg told Itar-Tass they had sued Ponomaryov after his refusal to give an account of the course of lectures he had read, for which he had received 750,000. The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case over misuse of funds against the foundation's vice-president Alexei Beltyukov. According to the SK, the top manager signed a contract with the lawmaker and illegally paid him 750,000 dollars of the foundation's money. Under the contract, Ponomayrov was to have received 300,000 dollars. The investigators said they would look into the content of the lectures to consider their scientific value. Meanwhile, the lawmaker claimed he had carried out more work than he had indicated in his account.