Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court ruled on January 17, 2011 that OOO Ural Elevator-Making Plant should undergo bankruptcy proceedings, thus closing case А60-1521/2010-С14, Kommersant reports under its Insolvency Announcements heading. Vladimir Rudko, a member of Delo Self-Regulatory Organization of Independent Trustees in Bankruptcy Non-Commercial Partnership, was appointed the company’s trustee in bankruptcy.

We had to close the store down for a while. The place will welcome the visitors again later on,’ EMA furniture store told UrBC without setting any exact reopening dates. The local service of Russia’s Ministry of Emergencies received a phone call about a broken reserve cold water supply pipeline (width 1,000 mm) at 4 Pirogov St in Yekaterinburg. The emergency crew locked the damaged section of the pipeline out. Apartment buildings and socially important structures keep getting their cold water supply as usual. Five vehicles and the eleven-people municipal emergency team are now working on the

Moscow division of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service imposed a one-million-ruble fine on National Bank Trust for its advertisements that read, ‘DEPOSITS at enormous interest’ and ‘LOAN is not scary’, the service’s press officer reports. According to the service, the two outdoor advertisements in question violated Article 5 (part 7) and Article 28 (part 1 (paragraph 2 (sub-paragraph 2))and part 3) of the Federal Advertising Act. For one, the ads violated Article 5 (part 7) of the Federal Advertising Act in that some of the information that is essential to the customer and the terms that

Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities for the environment detected an instance of polluting the River Chusovaya with toxic substances; the culprit is Russian Chrome 1915. ‘The company has been using obsolete filtering equipment that cannot cope with the amount of waste discharge, which means it’s doing harm to the environment,’ the prosecution authorities say. The investigation revealed that the company, which happens to be a water consumer, has been dumping inadequately filtered waste water from its neutralization station into the River Pakhotka. The waste water’s chrome content

The piracy rate has gone down by 10% in the Urals-based computer stores, even though the Urals used to be some of Russia’s top piracy areas, with the rate of up to 25% as recently as two years ago. Almost no pirated software is offered for sale. The thing is, we keep on instructing people and giving seminars for the retail outlets. Besides, we can see that the customers are no longer asking for pirated software as well,’ Microsoft Business Development Director in Ural Federal District Andrei Kinash announced at a press meeting in Yekaterinburg. ‘At the same time, we hardly pay attention to

Microsoft Corporation is going to switch to Russian rubles for settling arrangements with its Russia-based partners, Microsoft Business Development Director in Ural Federal District Andrei Kinash announced at a press meeting in Yekaterinburg. ‘The prices used to be in dollars, which in effect involved a bit of pain for our partners. This was mainly true of the educational establishments and state-run enterprises. Switching to rubles solves the problem,’ he explained. ‘We decided to bear the risks related to the rate of exchange fluctuations and accounted for them by a 10% price variation. The

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service’s division in Ural Federal District completed its field check of West-Siberian Commercial Bank/Zapsibcombank. Following the check, the bank was ordered to remove the detected violations of securities legislations and to take steps to ensure prevention of similar offenses in future.

The public prosecution authorities of Yekaterinburg Verkh Isetsky District asked the experts from Sverdlovsk Region State Construction Surveillance Administration and Ural Federal District division of Rostechnadzor (the state technological safety watchdog) to investigate the incident of a ceiling drop at NewYorker outlet in MEGA Mall in Yekaterinburg. The ceiling collapsed in the outlet at daytime on February 3, 2011. About 90 sq m worth of light-weight ceiling structures fell down, leaving three people with bruises and scratches. Once the experts detect the cause of the incident and identify

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, February 07, 2011. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) managed to reduce its energy spending by 3.9% in 2010 compared with a year earlier. All in all, the company saved 224,016,200 RUR (0.7%), while MMK Group saved 252,236,660 RUR (0.76%). ‘Due to our Mill 500, CC machine 6 and cutting-to-length unit 3 at our sheet rolling department 4 mastering new kinds of products, more raw materials were used but the general energy outgoings actually went down against the year 2009, making our goods more profitable,’ MMK reports. In order to reduce its

The General Director of Electrozinc (the asset of UMMC Holding) Pavel Avdeev is going to resign before the end of his term. The decision to this extent was taken by the company’s Board of Directors at a meeting on February 3, 2011. The reason given for this resignation is that Pavel Avdeev is transferred to another post. Ruslan Barashev is to become the plant’s new General Director. Pavel Avdeev was appointed the company’s GD in June 2010. Electrozinc’s performance has seemed increasingly dubious to the law-enforcement agencies lately. Russia’s Civic Chamber called the company the absolute

Brand Finance carried its annual rating of the world’s 500 largest banking brands for the year 2010 recently. The rating was compiled in cooperation with The Banker and featured eight Russian banks, whereas a year earlier, there were actually nine Russia-based banks on the list, Kommersant reports. These Russian banks’ total value rose by $514m compared with the year 2009 and reached $15.9bn. Sberbank, one of the Top20 banks in 2009, was given the 15th position back then but only the 19th position in 2010. On the other hand, its brand value exceeded $12bn, which was 6.5% better than a year

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service decided to halt the issue of ordinary registered uncertified shares by Mid-Urals Development Corporation; state serial number of the additional share issue is 1-01-33480-D-001D as of December 9, 2010.

Academic district of Yekaterinburg, one of Sverdlovsk Region’s top priority investment projects that is implemented with the support of Governor Alexander Misharin and the region’s government, has been visited by Caroline Wilson, Minister Counsellor (Economic and Trade Investment) of British Embassy, and the UK Consul-General in Yekaterinburg James McGuire The visitors had a look at the new apartment buildings in Quarter 2 and at the new security system and the public services infrastructure in the area. The diplomats also went to see the construction site of Quarter 5 that is to be

I’d like to point out the performance of Ural Airlines. This company’s management is extra-careful about ensuring the passengers’ safety, and there is a reason this carrier was called Russia’s best airline in terms of aviation fleet maintenance in 2009 by the European Commission,’ Urals’ public prosecutor for transportation Pavel Kukushkin said at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. The prosecution authorities inspected a number of airlines recently, finding a great number of passenger safety violations in many of them as a result. ‘Ural Airlines employs true professionals, who look

A hung ceiling collapsed at NewYorker outlet of the second floor of MEGA Mall in Yekaterinburg at 12:45 PM today, Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Ministry of Emergencies reports. No one was hurt. NewYorker outlet was shut down; the causes of the accident are being investigated. Yekaterinburg MEGA Mall houses the hypermarkets IKEA, Auchan, and OBI.

Ural Airlines is now helping Russian tourists leave Egypt. The company is now only going to operate chartered flights from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport to Hurghada and back and from Domodedovo to Sharm El Sheikh and back to Domodedovo. Starting today, under the agreements with the customer of the flights, they will only be collecting tourists to get them home. No tourists are allowed to fly to Egypt. The earliest return flights will be operated on February 3, 5, and 6 from Sharm El Sheik and on February 6, 9, and 13 from Hurghada. The decision to call off Egypt-bound flights is valid for all

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a decree on the transfer of federally owned shares of OAO Koltsovo Airport to Sverdlovsk Region. The shareholding in question comprises 34.56% of the company’s shares that are to be handed over within the course of six months. The President’s official website states the decision was taken in order to enhance Sverdlovsk Region’s air transportation efficiency and to attract investments needed for the construction, full-scale reconstruction, and upgrade of the airport facilities. For one, the share transfer is supposed to attract at least 32 billion RUR

One of the world’s largest hypermarket chains dealing in household goods and remodeling appliances Castorama intends to set up a 10,000-square-meter hypermarket in Yekaterinburg at the end of 2011 or early in 2012. The construction on the site located in the north of Yekaterinburg next to METRO’s third extension will probably start within weeks, says Vice Mayor Viktor Konteev’s press officer Ilona Starodubtseva. Castorama actually first announced it was planning to arrive in Yekaterinburg about three years ago, but all this time it was finding the right location that was preventing the

A batch of Maustaja Oy-manufactured Kevyt majonessi X-tra mayonnaise containing fractions of glass was detected in Finland; the mayonnaise in question comes in 450-gram packs. 3,324 items with the expiry date July 3, 2011 and July 4, 2011 were delivered to Russia by the Finnish company Inex Partners Oy. Food stores and caterers dealing in or using mayonnaise foods in Yekaterinburg are to report the absence of Kevyt majonessi X-tra in their stock to Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) immediately. This means they also have to inform Rospotrebnadzor’s Sverdlovsk Region

Linde Uraltechgaz underwent some changes in its shareholder structure recently. One BOD member Vladimir Samozdra, who used to own a 9.28% shareholding in the business, is no longer a stockholder. The same is true of Maria Kilimnik, whose shareholding used to amount to 12.71%. At the same time, Linde Aktiengesellschaft raised the number of Linde Uraltechgaz shares it owns to 71.99%. Uraltechgaz and Linde AG set up their joint venture in 2007.