French retail giant Auchan has come under fire from Russia's general prosecutor and environmental agency. The Natural Resources Ministry, which houses the environmental agency, said Auchan's oldest location in Russia - a 50 hectare cluster of stores - is standing on a plot of government land reserved for the Russian Institute of Agricultural Sciences. However, an Auchan official, said his company had not received any notice of the accusation.

"I trust that the illegally seized land will be returned to the government, and the people responsible for the illegal use of the space will be punished," said Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the environmental agency.

"We bought this space in good faith, on a legal basis and with the blessing of the deputy head of the Moscow regional administration," stated an Auchan spokesperson.

Before 2000 the land belonged to a branch of the Russian Agricultural Academy, but in accordance with a Moscow region programme to develop, the area was then leased to the private sector, in part to Auchan and London-listed real estate developer PIK Group. Auchan opened Russia's first European-owned hypermarket complex there in 2002.

"This must be some kind of misunderstanding," said PIK Group spokeswoman Natalya Konovalova. "We bought the land fair and square and are developing it according to the law. No one has informed us of anything." Auchan, which has been present in the Russian market since 2001, operates 18 food hypermarkets in the country's nine regions.

In addition to the troubles in Russia, the Hungarian competition watchdog (GVH) has fined Auchan €122,000 for misleading clients on promotional offers. GVH said Auchan kept insufficient stocks of products which it promoted in its newsletters in May, July, August and October 2007. The regulator said the offers attracted clients, who had to purchase other non-offer products as the discounted items had sold out within two days.