The Director-General of Uralets Entertainment Center Vyacheslav Potekhin disagrees with the stance taken by Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management and claims the ministry’s actions should be seen as exerting pressure, through administrative levers, upon the center in order to make them sign an agreement, he told UrBC.

Now Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management and the Ministry’s Executive Directorate intend to get Uralets to hold a general shareholder meeting, through a court ruling if necessary. The claim to this effect, asking to proclaim the ministry’s right over the shares of the center and to hold an AGM, has already been placed with the region’s Arbitration Court.

‘I disagree with Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management’s standpoint, but I will act within the limits of the law. If the court rules that a shareholder meeting is necessary, I’ll hold it. I see this as exerting pressure on me through administrative levers,’ the businessman announced to UrBC.

According to the latest available data, Potekhin controls over 60% of Uralets’s shares. In November 2011, the Executive Directorate directed 193m RUR to buy out Potekhin’s debt to Yekaterinburg Municipal Bank in order to take over a portion of the businessman’s shareholding; these shares were actually used as the collateral for the loan taken out from the bank. According to the authorities, they only obtained a 3.6% shareholding, while Potekhin got to keep most of the shares.

Now Potekhin himself placed a claim against Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management’s Executive Directorate with the Arbitration Court, asking to proclaim his right over 295,560 shares of Uralets Entertainment Center.

‘They have attacked me, and I am trying to defend myself,’ he told UrBC.