UrBC, Moscow, April 28, 2011. The oil and gas company Rosneft transferred 1.5bn RUR to the state budget recently, which was actually an administrative fine. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service announced in 2008 that the company had violated Article 10 (paragraph 1) of the Competition Protection Law. The agency also imposed a fine upon Rosneft in accordance with Article 14.31 of the Russian Federation Administrative Offence Code (which states a fine could come to anything between 1% and 15% of an offender’s proceeds resulting from the sale of product or service on the market where the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2011. LeMa violated the consumers’ rights to get timely, essential, and accurate information about the products on offer as far as its KIRBY vacuum cleaners were concerned. A Yekaterinburg dweller applied to Sverdlovsk Region Hygiene & Epidemiology Center’s Central Yekaterinburg division in February 2011, asking for legal advice regarding her clash with OOO LeMa located at 3 Bekhterev St. Off. 6 in Yekaterinburg. The said company prepared a demonstration of their product and signed a purchase and sale agreement for KIRBY model Sentra G10E in January 2011.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2011. President of Renova-StroyGroup Veniamin Golubitsky turned fifty-four today. Veniamin Golubitsky used to be a law scholar who moved all the way from a graduate student at the Chair of Administrative Law at M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University to Head of Law Department at the Institute of Philosophy & Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ural branch. He graduated from Moscow State University Law School with a major in legal science and is a PhD scholar. Golubitsky was employed with Sverdlovsk Region state authorities for nearly ten years; his work

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2011. Sredneuralsky Copper-Smelting Plant intends to pass the dividend for the year 2010; this was a recommendation coming from the company’s BOD. The annual general meeting is set for June 17, 2011.

UrBC, Moscow, April 26, 2011. The rating agency Expert RA reports it has called off the paying capacity rating of Tinkoff Credit Systems Bank because the rating in question has expired and because the company decided not to have it renewed. The bank used to have a rating of B++, with Acceptable paying capacity level.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2011. Ural Airlines is operating all the international chartered flights from Yekaterinburg, Saint Petersburg, and Moscow it has promised to operate, which is a great number of flights to a variety of international destinations. The company is committed to offering tickets only for those flights which have been coordinated with all the authorities, so the passengers who have already bought the tickets have nothing to worry about, the company’s press service says. Now Rosaviation recently published a list of air carriers that were not allowed to operate

UrBC, Moscow, April 27, 2011. The international rating agency confirmed the long-term credit rating of Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK), the Russian steel manufacturer, at BBB-. The rating was issued for the company’s ruble bonds (series 01) worth a total of 5bn RUR, the company’s 10bn RUR 05 Series bonds, and its 10bn RUR 06 Series bonds; NLMK was also rated at ruAAA as far as its national scale rating goes, with Stable rating outlook. ‘We would nevertheless like to mention that the company’s increased debt makes it more vulnerable to the industry’s potential decline. Worsening

UrBC, Moscow, April 26, 2011. Russian Railways suggests raising the freight fares by 3.4% for investment purposes, RIA Novosti refers to head of the company Vladimir Yakunin as saying. ‘The current situation is a bit strange, for example, the energy sector enterprises actually cover for their investments through charging the customers. To balance our budget without taking into account the new predictions that come up, we propose that the ‘investment’ part of the fare should come to about 3.4%,’ Yakunin said. Meanwhile, Russia’s Deputy Transport Minister Andrei Nedosekov said earlier that his

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2011. The customers of telecommunications company Motiv will be able to enjoy roaming by default starting May 1, 2011, as long as the customers use the tariff schemes of the Mobi GSM range (except for Boltastiki) and those like Urban Direct and Dewwwice, the company’s press service reports. What is more, the company will also launch its new service Roaming Non-Stop this May; the service provides for some new national and international roaming options and the reduced required minimum amount of money one has to have in one’s account for the roaming to be offered.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won the IT Leader Prize in the course of the 9th annual national competition. The awarding ceremony took place in Moscow, with over five hundred representatives of companies that design and introduce innovational IT solutions in their business practice attending the event. MMK is definitely the Russian ferrous metallurgy’s top IT products launcher. This primarily refers to the Oracle E-Business Suite-based unified corporate information system that the company is now using. The system provides data on the company’s financial and economic performance

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2011. Rosaviation allowed Ural Airlines to start operating scheduled flights from Sochi to Vienna and from Moscow to Cologne and Podgorica, the state agency’s updated list of Russian air carriers with international flights permissions states. At the same time, Rosaviation rejected RusLine’s application for operating flights from Moscow to Gyandzha and did not allow VIM Avia to operate more flights in this direction. As for chartered flights, Rosaviation declined the applications of eleven air companies willing to operate chartered flights from Moscow. Nordavia

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2011. The Yekaterinburg-based developer Atomstroycomplex decided not to use the name of Romanoff for its new apartment block in Moskovskaya St in Yekaterinburg. Following a re-branding campaign, the living quarter is now called Moscow. Red Pepper reports the change of the name had to do with the decision to position the product differently on the estate market. The company explained the earlier name of Romanoff had too many implicit negative connotations.

UrBC, Moscow, April 25, 2011. Moscow Arbitration Court ruled that the tour operator Capital Tour should undergo bankruptcy proceedings, Russian Agency for Legal and Judicial Information reports. The court ruled that the company’s own insolvency application was well-grounded. Evgeny Shklyayev was appointed the company’s trustee in bankruptcy. The hearings were set for November 24, 2011. Capital Tour currently owns its creditors 1.57bn RUR, including 1.57bn RUR worth of acknowledged debt, 6.67m RUR worth of indispensable payments, and 83,000 RUR worth of wage arrears.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2011. Starting April 27, 2011, Ural Airlines will be offering its customers a Yekaterinburg-Larnaka flight. The flight will be available on a weekly basis at first, that is, every Wednesday, and from May 29, 2011 to October 26, 2011, it will be operated twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. The airline reports the flight takes four hours and fifty minutes; it will be operated using a comfortable Airbus 320.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2011. Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service decided to halt the issue of The Industrial Urals-The Polar Urals’ ordinary registered paperless shares. The additional share issue was registered on February 10, 2011 (series 1-01-32851-D-004D).

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) decided to get their own fleet of railway vehicles to make sure the plant’s Vysota 239 department receives timely shipments of MMK Mill 5000 steel sheets. This is all part of the two companies’ strategic cooperation initiative. The decision to go through with the company railway fleet project was initially taken when Vysota 239 department and Mill 5000 at Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and MMK, respectively, were under constriction in 2007. The two companies bought forty-four special twelve-meter carriages meant for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 22, 2011. Introducing innovation in the production process is the basis of today’s business practices, the General Director of Sinara Group Mikhail Khodorovsky said at a press conference of Ural State University Higher School of Economics in Yekaterinburg. ‘Modernization is a big thing nowadays; one frequently speaks of importing technologies as one the ways to convert the Russian economy into intensive economic growth mode. It is obvious, however, that technology transfer is a tool for innovations rather than just a proviso of technological catching-up,’ he

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 22, 2011. Rosnano is going to obtain a controlling shareholding in Russky Magniy, a plant the construction of which will being in Asbest, Sverdlovsk Region, at the end of 2011, the regional Industry & Science Minister Alexander Petrov told RIA Novosti. The design team is currently working on the project and design documentation; the plant is expected to use a unique mineral production technology that will cost about 865m RUR to implement. ‘Rosnano, which will own the controlling shareholding in the business, will act as the project’s main investor. An agreement

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 22, 2011. 43,994 dwellers of Sverdlovsk Region applied to the state employment agencies between January and March 2011, which was 21% less than a year earlier (55,694 people). Between October 1, 2008 and April 1, 2011 344 enterprises reported they were planning to make a total of 57,840 employees redundant due to liquidation or shrinkage, with 45,731 people actually losing their jobs. 20,514 people found new jobs without having to apply to employment agencies, including 6,786 people who found a place within the same companies. 17,391 ex-workers came to the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 22, 2011. Government of Sverdlovsk Region, Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant, and Pervouralsk Metallurgical College signed a cooperation agreement valid though 2015; under this agreement, the college will train highly professional workers for today’s advanced metallurgical companies. This is the company’s pilot project on introducing new approaches to training highly skilled workers who would be useful for a wide range of economic fields. The agreement was signed by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin, the shareholder of ChTPZ Group (of which Pervouralsk New