Penza, 10 February 2016. PenzaNews. Pavel Polosin, editor-in-chief of PenzaNews agency, said he received a text message on his mobile phone number in the evening with an offer to “settle the issue out of court.”

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“I received a message at 18.19 of February 9 from the phone number +7 906 395 7307, reading: ‘I propose to settle the issue out of court.’ Also, this phone number called me 6 times throughout the day, and, apparently, once to our editorial office number. Due to my tight schedule, I was unable to answer neither of the calls, and I have no habit of calling back on unknown numbers,” Pavel Polosin said.

According to him, later he learned that the aforementioned number is regularly used by Alexander Tuzov, the individual businessman who is currently facing a lawsuit worth 3 million rubles for illegal use of 60 items of copyright work initiated by “VolgaInterMedia,” the founding body of PenzaNews agency.

“This may seem hard to believe, but Tuzov and I are not personally acquainted and have never met. We surely encountered one another on various events, most recent one being the February 4 gubernatorial press conference, but we did not talk. And, frankly speaking, I have no intention to talk to him, and very unlikely to wish to do so at all,” noted the PenzaNews editor-in-chief.

He added he “was even glad to be unable to answer these calls, if it really was Tuzov,” suggesting the “phone call in that case would have been devoid of purpose.”

“Logically, out-of-court settlement offers should be directed to the complaintant proper – ‘VolgaInterMedia’ headed by Ivan Malikov. And not through text messages. But seems like Tusov knows the best – after all, he is reportedly a practicing lawyer with a degree. As for myself, I would like to stress again that I have no material claims against the individual businessman in question,” Pavel Polosin concluded.