‘The company now has 22.5m RUR worth of arrears of wages for 2003-2004. Besides, following the order of the public prosecution bodies a great number of environmental legislation violations were reveled. This resulted in taking legal action against the company’s management on April 6, 2006,’ Deputy Public Prosecutor of Sverdlovsk Region Mikhail Savchin announced at the pres conference.

‘Former Directors, Mr Prokopyev and Mr Eremeev, have gone through administrative and criminal cases a number of times. The latter was found guilty according to Clause 201 (Part 2) of Russian Criminal Code, the former was charged with Clause 17.7 of Russian Administrative Code and Clause 222 (part 1) of Russian Criminal Code. Mr Prokopyev is now held in detention and charged with Clause 159 (part 4) of Russian Criminal Code: ‘Fraud’. The works in now being managed by V. I. Starodubtsev,’ Mr Savchin said.

‘The regional budget gave 13m RUR to pay the debts of the chemical works, the rest of the debt is to be paid ASAP; we’ll start paying the workers on April 6. As for the company, its future fate is to be determined by the Court of Arbitration in now sooner than a year,’ Mr Savchin said.