McDonald's has gone to a local Russian court to defend its right to mix and serve Coca-Cola and Sprite, a news report said Thursday.
Since last summer the iconic U.S. fast food chain has been rocked by a campaign of sanitary spot checks that temporarily closed over 10 of its restaurants across Russia. Many saw politics in the crackdown, which came against the backdrop of U.S. sanctions over Ukraine.
After inspecting McDonald's five restaurants in the Volgograd region, Russia's sanitary watchdog Rospotrebnadzor decreed that the mixing of Coke, Sprite and other soft drinks from concentrate on the premises amounted to illegal on-site drinks preparation and said McDonald's must stop selling them by March 25, according to the TASS news agency.
McDonald's has opened a case against the watchdog in the region's arbitration court to overturn the restriction, the court's press secretary Olga Goncharova told TASS.
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