Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is going to resume looking into the claim laid by Denis Luzhetskiy against OOO Fond Mira Travel Company on June 23, 2010, the court’s press officer reports. The plaintiff insists that the company be declared bankrupt. Fond Mira’s creditor, Luzhetskiy placed his claim with the court on April 6, 2010. This is, in fact, not the only lawsuit the travel company got involved in. On April 5, 2010, OAO Uralprivatbank laid a claim against Fond Mira as well. The bank demanded that the debtor and its codefendants OOO Yurmarket and the company’s director Igor

OAO NK Lukoil’s revenues (if calculated in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards) decreased by 14 times in the first quarter of 2010 compared with January-March 2009 and reached 8.58 billion RUR, RIA Novosti reports. In fact, Lukoil has been exporting oil on contracts of commission agency-basis only since January 1, 2010. Besides, the company does not deal in any oil sales on the domestic market, as this task was 100% delegated to Lukoil Group’s oil-production enterprises. ‘These facts resulted in a significant drop in revenues,’ the company’s report says.

Experts from Yekaterinburg Customs Intellectual Property Rights Protection Department and officers of Yekaterinburg’s Verkh-Isetskiy district customs found out in the course of a customs check that a number of toy mobile phones bearing a logo very nearly identical to that of Disney were imported to Russia from China, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. ‘The trademark owner’s representative in the Russian Federation has been informed of this copyright infringement and violation of intellectual property rights. The representative confirmed that the toy mobiles in question

One more Airbus A320-214 has been added to Ural Airlines’ air fleet. The carrier bought the aircraft that was previously used by USA3000 on an operating lease agreement for eight and a half years. The airplane is currently in perfect condition. Prior to using the plane, Ural Airlines gave the aircraft full-scale scheduled maintenance service. The plane is fitted with a leather-upholstered business class, 12 business class seats, and 138 economy class seats. Ural Airlines is currently operating a dozen A320 airplanes, two A321 ones, and a few TU-154M planes.

The Russian Federation Mining & Metallurgical Trade Union organized a meeting of UC RUSAL’s trade union chairmen and heads of the Mining & Metallurgical Trade Union’s local divisions with RUSAL management. The agenda of the meeting covered issues related to changes in the company’s organization and adjustments to the collective agreements based on this year’s labor contract and on positive trends on the aluminum market as well as wage indexation, organization of children’s summer vacations, and voluntary medical insurance for workers. According to the trade union’s press officer, UC

‘A lot of local industrial sites have been ruined over the last few years; the only things to be seen there now are some desolate workshops and construction sites. These areas need to be registered, inspected, and put to efficient use,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevitch said to the local reporters after a meeting with his deputies and the regional ministers. According to the Governor, they need to get control over the bankruptcies of local enterprises. ‘We have to cooperate very closely with the trustees in bankruptcy’s guild to make sure these trustees’ actions are supervised

Experts claim that, among all the metallurgical enterprises, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) will suffer the smallest losses occasioned by the lack of coal supplies from Raspadskaya mine. Now the media recently quoted Governor of Kemerov Region Aman Tuleyev as saying that it would take at least a year to restore Raspadskaya mine after the two methane explosions on May 9, 2010. According to the experts’ preliminary estimates, the cost of restoring the above-ground infrastructure will come to 700 million RUR, while it will cost another 5 billion RUR to deal with the underground

Experts claim that, among all the metallurgical enterprises, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) will suffer the smallest losses occasioned by the lack of coal supplies from Raspadskaya mine. Now the media recently quoted Governor of Kemerov Region Aman Tuleyev as saying that it would take at least a year to restore Raspadskaya mine after the two methane explosions on May 9, 2010. According to the experts’ preliminary estimates, the cost of restoring the above-ground infrastructure will come to 700 million RUR, while it will cost another 5 billion RUR to deal with the underground

Novgorod’s environmental prosecution authorities and a number of experts from Novgorod Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) looked into the way ZAO Novgorod Metallurgical Plant (the asset of Russian Copper Company) complied with the existing environmental legislation. In the course of inspecting the premises of the plant, the experts detected a number of violations. For one, it was revealed that the enterprise exceeded the maximum permissible atmospheric discharge of carbon monoxide; also, its carbon monoxide emissions were higher than what was prescribed by

Moscow Arbitration Court declared ZAO Tsifrograd, a mobile phones and consumer electronics chain, bankrupt last week, so the company will now have to undergo bankruptcy proceedings, Kommersant reports. ZAO Tsifrograd applied for bankruptcy in August 2009. On October 23, 2009, the arbitration court placed the company on bankruptcy watch and appointed Mikhail Vasilega the debtor’s provisional trustee in bankruptcy. During the court session on May 13, 2010, Mikhail Vasilega was appointed trustee in bankruptcy with full authority. The company now has six creditors, whose claims amount to about

The Russian Federation Federal Financial Market Service took Gazprombank, NRB, Rus-Bank, and J.P. Morgan Bank International off the list of banks that are allowed to deposit private individuals’ retirement savings. The list now comprises fifty-three banks altogether, RBC daily reports.

United Company RUSAL came up with a performance report for the first quarter of 2010. The company’s net profit reached $247m against $638m worth of net loss in the first quarter of 2009. RUSAL’s revenues rose by 31% (up to $2.33m), compared with the year earlier. This was possible due to the growing aluminum prices. The enterprise’s operating profits came to $366m, compared with $247m worth of losses in the first quarter of 2009. According to RUSAL’s report, the company’s aluminum output decreased y 4% in January-March 2010 compared with January-March 2009 and reached 973,000 tons. Their

Yamalo-Nenetskiy Autonomous Region reduced its share in The Industrial Urals-The Polar Urals Corporation from 41.95% to 30.71%. The shares of Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region and of Chelyabinsk Region decreased from 25.54% to 18.78% and from 6.69% to 4%, respectively, the corporation reports. At the same time, Tyumen Region raised its share in the corporation from 25.61% to 45.55%.

OAO Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank was rated Ural Federal District’s 9th largest bank by Interfax’s Center for Economic Analysis recently. According to Interfax-CEA, the bank’s assets increased by 5.8% in the first quarter of 2010 and reached 19.4 billion RUR. This impressive growth made it possible for Gubernskiy Bank to improve its region-wide rating. There are fifty-two Ural Federal District-based banks on Interfax-CEA’s list altogether.

Experts from Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) checked OOO Alcor-C (L’Etoile), a cosmetics chain, for compliance with the consumer rights and sanitary legislation. The check involved inspecting 3,725 items offered for sale, 2,033 of which were called off. This amounted to 4.6% of all the goods inspected. Among the discarded items were 372 cosmetic products past their sell-by date. This was 18% of the total amount. Among the problems detected by the inspectors were the facts that some products offered for sale expired as early as February

‘We have had to reject more visa applications this year than the year before. However, the total number of people who have been refused a visa still comes to only 2% to 2.5% of all the applicants. Most of the refusals have to do with the applicants providing inaccurate information. Nevertheless, there can also be some ‘technical’ reasons, for example, people not submitting a particular document,’ the Consul General of the French Republic in Yekaterinburg Claude Crouail said at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘One example of inaccurate information is some fictional hotel booking.

‘We issued about 16,000 visas last year, which was 30% less than in the year 2008,’ the Czech Republic’s Consul General in Yekaterinburg Miroslav Ramez said at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘However, we can see a positive trend in 2010. The number of Czech visas grew by 8% in February, by 14% in March, and by 12% in April. This means traveling is on the increase, so we expect to issue some 20,000 visas this year,’ he added. ‘We reject 1% to 1.5% of visa applications, mainly for reasons of factual inaccuracy,’ the Consul explained.

OAO Ural Airlines now makes it possible for its customers to check-in online. Using a step-by-step interface, a passenger can choose the most attractive seat, check-in the accompanying passengers and get a boarding card at any suitable time, as the online check-in is available twenty-three hours before the flight and finishes about four hours before take-off. To check in, one should go to the company’s website at www.uralairlines.ru, select Online Check-In on the main page’s menu options, and follow the instructions. Passengers are identified through their e-ticket number or through their

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevitch decided to allocate some budget subsidies to a number of social welfare construction projects in the region, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. First of all, some money will be directed to the buildings that can be finished and commissioned before the end of this year. As far as the city of Chelyabinsk is concerned, the budget will finance the completion of the positron emission tomography center and the acquisition of the medical equipment for it (which will cost 43 million RUR) as well as the completion of children’s clinical hospital

‘Getting our customers to pay is still the company’s major problem for now. Even though their debt has been going down lately, IES Holding’s customers still owe us some 2.5 billion RUR for the heating energy consumed. We are going to use all the legitimate means available to get our money. We really need it this summer in order to prepare for the next heating season,’ Director of OOO Sverdlovsk Heating Supply Company Sergey Yefimov said in the course of a conference dedicated to the success of last winter’s heating season in Yekaterinburg. ‘We managed to get through the season without any