Kaspersky considers contesting Lithuania’s decision to restrict its software

Evgeny Grigorenko, head of public affairs for Europe at Kaspersky Lab, says that the company has so far received no response from the Lithuanian government regarding a dialog.

“At the moment, our main goal, our intention is to establish a dialogue, and at the moment we are focusing on the litigation in the USA,” Grigorenko said at a news conference in Vilnius.

“But in the end we still have to protect our market positions and we keep all the possible options for us. It means that, in the end, if we see, that we are discriminated in the specific market, we will have to go to court if needed”, he said.

Kaspersky Lab will in the future seek to provide services in Europe via an intermediary, with plans to set up a center managed by a company not affiliated with the security software provider, company officials said.

All Lithuanian critical IT system managers that had Kaspersky Lab products on their computers have stopped using the company’s software after the government said in late December that it posed a threat to national security.

Concern about Kaspersky products heightened after the United States said last year that the company might be working with Russian intelligence services. The US government last September banned civil agencies from using Kaspersky software. The company has appealed against the decision.