Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court rejected the claim laid by Sverdlovsk Region prosecution authorities regarding declaring invalid a certain normative act, namely, the region’s law on imposing corporate property tax (subparagraphs 12 and 13), Kommersant reports. The prosecution authorities claimed that the subparagraphs in question did not comport with the certain points of Russia’s Tax Code and that they violate the existing Competition Protection Act. Now the amendments to the law were made in October 2010 and came into effect at the start of 2011. According to one of these amendments,

Russian Railwasy and STM-Service (Sinara-Transport Machines) signed a maintenance agreement involving Sinara electric locomotives produced by Sinara Group and Siemens AG joint venture called Ural Locomotives, Sinara Group’s PR Department reports. Under the terms of the agreement, STM-Service will have to provide good quality maintenance needed to keep 2ES6 locos 001-137 in good condition.

Fitch Ratings carried out a number of rating researches involving the daughter companies of the Italian bank UniCredit S.p.A. (A/Rating Watch Negative/F2) based in Central and Eastern Europe. The research was done after the bank’s long-term Issuer Default Rating (A) was placed on the Rating Watch, with Negative rating outlook. The rating agency reconsidered the rating outlook for the long-term Issuer Default Rating of UniCreditBank Russia (BBB+) from Positive to Stable. This change reflects the growing uncertainty as to the parent enterprise’s capacity to support its daughter banks in the

Koltsovo Airport filling station is going to launch a 2.6% jet fuel price increase, so the fuel will come to cost 29,150 RUR per ton, the station reports. The Yekaterinburg-based airport’s press service informed Interfax-Ural that the increase in the price of fuel has to do with the suppliers’ growing prices. Meanwhile, the price of jet fuel already went up by 4.4% on September 11, 2011.

Unilever and Concern Kalina announced that the former signed an agreement on purchasing 82% of Yekaterinburg-based concern’s shares. The price of the 82% shareholding comes to approximately 16.7 RUR (?390m). Upon the completion of the transaction, Unilever intends to make an obligatory buy-out offer to the rest of Kalina’s stockholders involving the rest of the shares not covered by the initial agreement. This will be done in accordance with the procedure and the terms set out in the current Russian legislation.