The Board of Directors of TGK-9, the heat and power supplier, met on December 24, 2009 to close down some of the company’s subsidiaries, namely, Permteplosbyt, Sverdlovteplosbyt, Syktyvkarskiye Teploviye Seti, and Ukhtinskiye Teploviye Seti. In fact, Sverdlovteplosbyt was set up at the time to facilitate the purchase of heat energy from all the suppliers connected to the heating networks and the sale of this energy to end users at a fixed price.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court resumed the hearing of the claim laid by the Bank of Russia’s Main Division in Sverdlovsk Region (on behalf of the Central Bank of Russia as a whole) against Ural Innovational Commercial Bank (UIC Bank) and Alexei Bagaryakov, Galina Devonina, and Nadezhda Zykova on December 28, 2009. The claim is related to how the defendants applied the consequences stemming from the invalidity of some legal transactions. The plaintiff insists that the transaction through which Alexei Bagaryakov sold UIC Bank’s 19.9% and 5.1% shareholdings to Galina Devonina and Nadezhda

The Russian Federation Federal Financial Market Service decided to annul the licenses of some professional securities market players, including that of Ufa-based Center-Invest Investment Company (the license allowed the company to perform brokerage and dealing operations and handle securities management) and that of Yekaterinburg-based Bank24.ru (the license allowed the bank to perform depositary transactions).

‘The Urals’ real estate management market is still non-existent due to lack of demand. All of Yekaterinburg’s management companies were set up by the builders themselves at the time. So the management companies’ activity is not even a business as such, it’s just that the recession has forced many developers to halt their construction projects and to switch to making money through the management of the buildings they already have,’ R-management Management Company’s General Director Alexei Maltsev said to UrBC. In the meantime, the Czech OKIN FACILITY RU that deals in real estate maintenance

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin declared that the medical workers who’d helped the victims of Perm-based Lame Horse Club fire accident should be given a premium. The Governor’s thanks and the 35,000-ruble premium will be directed to thirty-one health professionals. These are mainly the medical superintendents and doctors from Chelyabinsk Region clinical hospital, Chelyabinsk Municipal Hospital’s burn center, and emergency medicine center as well as psychologists from Semya rehabilitation center. The premiums cover thirteen doctors who actually flew to Perm to help the people

It has been detected that Bank24.ru violated Article 5 (part 7) of the Federal Advertising Act, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service claims. Marina Yusupova, the spokesperson for the division, told UrBC that the bank’s offense consisted in using ad banners that offered the customers a free opening of a bank account. ‘We received a complaint from OOO ASM Resource that stated Bank24.ru had placed an ad banner next to the bank’s additional office at 56 Lenin St. The ad said, ‘A free settlement account for legal entities and sole traders.’ However, ASM Resource

40% of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport’s shares might be handed over to Sverdlovsk Region, Vladimir Levchenko (who seeks office of Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Management Minister) said at an extraordinary meeting of Sverdlovsk Region Duma. At the moment, the airport’s major shareholders are OAO Koltsovo-Invest (which owns 51.9% of shares) and the Federal Property Management Agency (which has a 46.08% shareholding). Levchenko explained the region’s Governor Alexander Misharin had already talked the matter over with the Russian Federation Transport Minister Igor Levitin. Vladimir

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is about to consider the claim laid by Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Management Ministry against Metro Cash & Carry. The ministry believes the defendant’s agreement related to purchase of a land allotment is invalid. The preliminary court hearing was scheduled for December 24, 2009. Metro runs two stores in Yekaterinburg at the moment. One of them is located at 21 Sibirskiy Tract-2 (a relief road); the other one can be found at 85 Metallurgov St. The company operates forty-eight shops throughout Russia altogether.

Following an inspection of UralTransBank by Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities and their investigative committee, criminal proceedings were instituted against one of the bank’s executives. The accusations (of fraud) are based on Article 159 (part 4) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code, the spokesperson for the prosecution authorities reports. For one, the authorities believe that the director of Ural Transport Bank’s Nizhniy Tagil subsidiary Pavel Mukhachev transferred 95 million RUR worth of promissory notes to the former heads of Baranchinskiy Mechanical Plant Grigory

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court sustained the claim laid by OAO AKB Rosbank against Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Enterprise. The defendant will now have to pay the plaintiff over 167 million RUR. The court proceedings were resumed after the results of the handwriting comparison had been received. The defendant insisted that its creditor’s claims were ungrounded because the date when the promissory notes for December 2008-April 2009 were signed and the signature of the company’s General Director couldn’t be authentic as the GD was allegedly away on business on that particular

Vladimir and Andrei Frolov have announced via a number of online forums that they are looking for some businesses willing to test their new e-banking product. The heads of a newly founded bank even insist that their testers have some experience of working with e-banking products (preferably Bank Severnaya Kazna’s Internet Bank) and use the product as both a business account administrator and a private individual. ‘We expect some constructive cooperation and a patient attitude towards the hypothetical glitches,’ a E1 forum user acting on behalf of Andrei Frolov says. Vladimir Frolov’s online

‘The year 2009 has been more or less stable and quiet for our company. Some of our key customers never let us down, but, unfortunately, a number of others, like Uralmashzavod, were not so reliable,’ Heating Energy Sales Director of TGK-9 Elena Malakhova said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘As far as the regional towns and cities are concerned, Yekaterinburg and Berezovskiy councils paid their bills every month, maintained good payment level, and influenced their non-paying management companies effectively. However, things are still not as bright in Kamensk-Uralskiy, Krasnoturinsk, or

‘A Russian-German summit will take place in Yekaterinburg in the spring of 2010,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin announced at his recent meeting with the participants of the President’s management training program in Yekaterinburg.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to resume the hearing of the claim laid by OOO Nash Stil against Uralvneshtorg Sverdlovsk Region State Unitary Enterprise on December 22, 2009. The plaintiff placed the claim with the court on September 15, 2009, asking that the defendant be declared bankrupt. Nash Stil insisted Uralvneshtorg owed it over 100,000 RUR which the latter had been unable to pay for over three months. The existence of this debt was officially confirmed by the arbitration court. During the last court hearing, the creditor reiterated its money claims and the debtor asked for the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court resumed the hearing of the claim laid by OAO AKB Rosbank’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary against Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Enterprise. The plaintiff insists on being paid 167 million RUR worth of debt. The court hearing was scheduled for December 22, 2009. The debt in question stems from the money borrowed through promissory notes as well as the interest and fines. The proceedings could be resumed after the results of the handwriting comparison had been received. The thing is, the defendant insists that its creditor’s claims are ungrounded

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps handling OAO Pnevmostroymashina’s bankruptcy proceedings. The company placed its insolvency application with the court on September 3, 2009. The court reports the company has already got over sixty various creditors, including ZAO AKB Absolut Bank’s Yekaterinburg branch, Raiffeisen-Bank Austria’s Ural subsidiary, Bank VTB’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary, ZAO KAB Bank Société Générale Vostok, UniCreditBank, and some others. The next court hearing has been scheduled for December 22, 2009.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin signed a decree related to giving awards to the law-enforcement officers who took part in the investigation of Valeriy Nekrasov’s murder. Valeriy Nekrasov was the CEO of Chelyabinsk Obligatory Medical Insurance Fund. Following Petr Sumin’s provision, forty-six officers from Chelyabinsk Region’s Internal Affairs Administration and the prosecution authorities’ investigative committee will be given premiums ranging between 20,000 RUR and 50,000 RUR. The spokesperson for the Governor reports the crime was committed on November 22, 2009 and only a day

Chelyabinsk Region is going to devote the next five years to healthcare improvements, the region’s Governor Petr Sumin announced at a recent press conference. ‘Over the last few years, plenty of improvements have been introduced in the healthcare field in Kunashakskiy and Argayashskiy districts as well as in Varna, Chesma, Troitsk, and Chelyabinsk. We have already built a number of important facilities and we keep on working on some new ones. For one, a children’s hospital was put up in Chelyabinsk, which cost 1.3 billion RUR. Naturally we don’t have enough money for every single project, but

‘The worst part of the recession is over,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin announced at an end-of-year press conference. Sumin said the year 2009 was the hardest ever for the region. The recession cut the regional budget by 43% and made the authorities decrease budget expenses by 32 billion RUR. What is more, they still had to pay the local enterprises back 10 billion RUR worth of over-paid income tax. ‘There were some grave socioeconomic problems, too: the unemployment rate tripled and reached 70,000 jobless people in May 2009,’ he noted. ‘What helped us overcome all these

‘In spite of the harsh weather conditions, 1.5 million tons of crops and plenty of vegetables have been harvested in the region this year,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said at a recent press conference. The Governor also noted 278,000 tons of meat had been produced, including 150,000 tons of poultry. ‘Our farmers have learned to manage their money well, so our agribusiness lending portfolio increased to 10 billion RUR in 2009. This money is used to improve the production facilities, launch new technologies, and implement large-scale investment projects. In 2010, the region’s