Romanian debts collection agency Urban si Asociatii, which has been fined for spamming activities, announced on Monday it was suing the country's main communications regulator ANRCTI over thousands of spam messages received on the e-mail addresses of the company and of the 900+ collaborating lawyers.

The agency says it's been delivering notifications to ANRCTI for months about unsolicited publicity messages, but the only measure taken was that itself became the first Romanian firm to be sanctioned for spam.

ANRCTI officials have told HotNews.ro that Urban si Asociatii has been fined with 1,000 lei for spamming activities following an investigation launched in late 2007. The investigation was initiated following complaints about e-mails sent by the company. The notifications sent by Urban si Asociatii appeared after the company was asked to prove it did not breach the law on e-commerce, officials said.

Urban si Asociatii representatives complain that for months they've sent over 188 notifications accompanied by spam message headers, IDs of mail senders and the respective ISPs. "The 188 notifications are real, ANRCTI did not return with an answer", company representatives told HotNews.ro.

Besides that, they said ANRCTI informed the company about a notification about its activities on January 29. On January 31, the agency demanded information about those who have issued the complaint, but did not receive an answer either. And they said that the company reports financial losses of up to 88,000 euro because of unsolicited publicity messages.

ANRCTI says that it received about 50 spam complaints in the first two months of 2008 alone, and while many of there were sent by Urban si Asociatii, the company's wave of complaints started as late as two days after it was requested to prove it was not involved in spamming activ