'The existing law on city planning says that if a shop or other commercial building has not been officially commissioned, it is not permitted to operate. What the city council looks into is not reports on the eliminated deficiencies but the actual papers. As for the newly introduced Ford Center, it hasn’t got the documents we need,’ the spokesperson for Yekaterinburg council Konstantin Pudov said to UrBC.

Mr. Pudov has commented on the city council’s position before, saying that Ford Center had no right to begin operating, since no papers on the official commissioning procedures were sent to them. The car center, in its turn, couldn’t get the papers as Archnadzor (the architectural authority) didn’t seem to approve of the technical specifications of the building. Ford Center claims to have eliminated all the problems, though.

'There are certain rules that all the local companies play by. Some foreign investors, however, appear to believe that they don’t have to worry about these rules when coming to work in Yekaterinburg. In this case, though, no one is above the law, and both Russian and foreign investors must comply with the regulations and be prepared to face some sanctions if they don’t. As for what sanctions are to be imposed, our oversight bodies will decide on this,’ Mr. Pudov observed.