Sberbank of Russsia’s Yekaterinburg-based offices keep offering special bonuses to people buying American Express travelers’ checks. Any customer who buys at least $2,000 or ?2,000 worth of these is offered a corporate style MP3 player, the bank’s press officer reports. According to the bank’s data, over $500,000 worth of American Express travelers’ checks were sold in Yekaterinburg offices within one month of the special offer, with over 50 players presented to customers.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is now hearing the claims laid by a number of Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Association’s creditors against the debtor. Two of these claims are to be considered on June 25, 2009. Intra Tool Ltd placed its claim with the regional court, insisting that the defendant should pay them 2,739,700.32 RUR Terra Trans Ltd took the case to Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, demanding that Uralvagonzavod should pay them 25,697,434.15 RUR as the interest for using borrowed money; the interest was charged in accordance with Article 395 of the Russian

‘The situation is still difficult, but we are gradually recovering after the hard times we had at the end of last year. In February 2009, for instance, Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial output only came to 69% of last February’s figures, but the figure reached 80% in March and 84% in April 2009. Some growth was also observed in May and June 2009, which means that the local enterprises kept building up on their production volumes after the initial shock,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced while presenting the budget message at the Regional Duma and the Legislative Assembly’s

The Russian Federation Federal Antimonopoly Service imposed over 19 million RUR worth of fines on Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg for the airport’s abuse of dominant market position (the charge is based on Article 14.31 of the Administrative Offense Code). The Service actually declared on September 19, 2009 that the airport had violated Article 10 (part 1) of the federal bill on the protection of competition (which prohibits profiteering from one’s dominant market position) by refusing to sign a certain agreement. Since Koltsovo Airport eliminated the problem voluntarily, no sanctions were

The officers of Nizhniy Tagil customs and the local law-enforcement officers detected that a Nizhniy Tagil-based sole trader had been selling fake Adidas sportswear – the goods had not been registered with the famous trademark, nor was there any permission to use it. What is more, any documents that could prove the legitimacy of using the trademark were actually missing. Some clothes samples were placed with the board of experts, who declared the goods were pirated copies. 160 items were confiscated, with the trademark owner’s damage estimated at over 260,000 RUR.