British i CD Publishing accused Odnoklassniki creator Albert Popkov of breaching contract and demands the projects income, as well as rights to the trademark, domain and software. Popkov denies the claims and plans to defend his rights.

The Internet portal "Odnoklassniki.ru" (Odnoklassniki.ru) - one of the most popular Russian social Internet resources - was registered in 2002 and launched in early March 2006. Today, dark clouds have gathered over its developer.
Representatives of the British company i-CD Publishing accused the creator of Russia's largest network, Albert Popkov, of breaching the contract. I-CD Publishing and its affiliated companies Carlene Investment Ltd. and Passado Ltd. claim that Popkov created the company Odnoklassniki Ltd (the owner of LLC "Odnoklassniki") while working at i-CD and for i-CD.
They are demanding from Popkov all the income he received from Odnoklassniki.ru, as well as recognition of i-CD as the owner of the eponymous trademark, domain name, and software of the network.
In his interview with the London correspondent of Radio Liberty, i-CD Publishing CEO Alistair Crawford commented on the essence of the lawsuit as follows: "Our claims against Mr. Popkov are related to the work he was doing when he was an employee of our company, more specifically, to the creation by him of the Odnoklassniki network during his work with us. At that time he was creating this network for our company. In fact, he was creating Odnoklassniki for himself and launched it in Russia 16 days after he left our company."
It is known that in 2003 - 2006 Albert Popkov headed the development department of this company. He was responsible for launching the Passado social network for classmates in Russia. To do this, he had to study the Russian social network market, register a domain name, and compile a database of schools. The Russian Passado was launched in beta version, but was shut down in April 2006.
By signing the contract, Popkov undertook not to engage in any activity competing with the plaintiffs' core business, the document says. Nevertheless, in 2002, unbeknownst to his employer, Popkov registered the domain Odnoklassniki.ru and the eponymous trademark in his own name, the lawsuit states, and while still working at i-CD, acquired a database of Russian schools and developed a social network. In doing so, he cut across the Russian Passado, and therefore violated his obligations.
Albert Popkov disagrees with the lawsuit and intends to defend his rights. "I hope that the truth will be on my side, I did nothing wrong and stole nothing from anyone," A. Popkov said. "I wrote the first Odnoklassniki website with my own hands, launched it, and at a certain stage promoted it almost single-handedly. I have no other choice but to defend my interests, and I am ready to go all the way." "I really worked at i-CD for several years, but I had no contracts with Passado or Carlene, and besides, in the last year of working there I had nothing to do with the development of the Passado website," he added.