Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) declared upon looking into the performance of Sverdlovsk Region-based banks that the issue of consumer rights protection is as vital on the financial services market as on any other one. Customers unhappy with various banks keep placing increasingly more complaints with the service: the number of those went up from two in 2006 to 33 in 2007 to 84 in 2008 to 86 in 2009 and to 320 in 2010. In the year 2010, most complaints were placed against OOO KB Renaissance Capital, OOO Rusfinance Bank, OAO AKB Rosbank, and

Bank VTB might assume actual control over the Bank of Moscow as soon as this week, Kommersant reports. A source close to one of the Bank of Moscow’s stockholders told the newspaper that Bank VTB’s share in the business will rise not due to acquiring a 3.88% shareholding (currently owned by Goldman Sachs) but due to buying a 2.77% share from Credit Suisse as well as buying a minority shareholding in the Bank of Moscow of about 1.6%.

Following a claim laid by Prosecutor of Salekhard, Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region against OAO Uralsvyazinform, a telecommunications provider, the defendant was made to limit access provided to websites that contain information about the illegal tobacco and other smoking admixtures. OAO Uralsvyazinform disagreed with the municipal court’s ruling and took the case to Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region Court. The district court’s civil cases judicial division looked into both the cassation and the prosecutor’s arguments and supported the ruling pronounced by Salekhard court, finding it both

Sverdlovsk Region’s Ministry of Internal Affairs Division’s Economic Offense Department keeps investigating the case of OOO Intek, OOO Torgovy Tsentr, and ZAO Forum Group’s management who are suspected of offenses committed in the process of using a land allotment in Volgogradskaya St-Zoologicheskaya St-Repin St-S.Deryabina St. in Yekaterinburg. The company intends to put up a retail park there and has felled down all the trees in the area to clear the space for it. ‘The necessary requests have been sent to obtain more exhaustive information about the use of the land allotment. We have also

A delegation of Sverdlovsk Region officials is to take part in the international real estate investment fair MIPIM-2011. Governor Alexander Misharin, who heads the delegation, is going to visit the fair that will take place in Cannes on March 8-11, 2011. Sverdlovsk Region’s stand will be housed in Azur Pavilion and will be finished off in one ‘trademark’ style. Throughout the exhibition, non-stop presentations of projects (including Academic, Yekaterinburg’s newest district and a multi-faceted area development project) will be made at the stand.

ZAO Bank Socété Générale Vostok is likely to merge with OAO Rosbank soon. The decision to reorganize the latter will be considered by the bank’s stockholders on April 15, 2011 OAO Rosbank BOD has already suggested that the shareholders approve of the merging agreement with ZAO Bank Socété Générale Vostok.

The international rating agency demoted X5 Retail Group’s corporate rating and its default probability rating, RIA Novosti reports. Moody's downgraded X5 from B1 down to B2 after the company had bought up Kopeika, one of the country-wide discounter food chains. The agency’s experts explain that the rating had to go down because of the expected deterioration of the company’s financial performance immediately following the transaction. The rating outlook for both ratings is Stable. X5 Retail Group completed the deal at 51.5bn RUR in December 2010. Kopeika’s stores will undergo a

Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) received eleven customer complaints from Yekaterinburg Oktyabrsky and Kirovsky districts dwellers about a number of motor shows, the division’s press service reports. The motor shows customers complained about the poor quality of cars they had bought, the consumer rights-infringing provisos in the purchase or loan agreements, the lack of full and accurate information about the product’s application characteristics, the seller failing to meet the delivery date deadlines, the seller refusing to fix the

Transaero Airlines stopped doing business with the tour operator Fostour PTS and offered its seat quotas to Biblio Travel, South Cross, TEZ Tour, and Transaero Tour Center, the company announced in an official press release. The decision was taken because Fostour still owes the airline $3.3m; the air carrier intends to take the case to court. ‘Fostour’s debts had been accumulating since last fall. The total amount exceeded $3.3m in February 2011, and only $572,000 are actually covered by a bank guarantee,’ the press release states.

The bilateral international agreement signed by the Hungarian and Danish Governments has made it possible for Hungarian Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg to issue short-term Schengen visas to Denmark, Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for International and Foreign Economic Relations’ press service reports. This means that, with the Danish agreement, the consulate can also offer travelers and businesspeople visas to Austria, Latvia, Slovenia, and Finland in addition to issuing Hungarian visas proper.

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service decided to halt the issue of ZAO Ural Boeing Manufacturing’s ordinary registered paperless shares. The company is based in Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region. The shares were issued through a private offering; state registration number is 1-01-09324-K-003D as of July 8, 2010.

Ural Airlines passengers flying from Yekaterinburg, Moscow, Krasnodar, Chita, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok can use the Lent-Diet Meal offer between March 3, 2011 and April 23, 2011. During the days of the Lent, the airline can offer its customers the dishes that both fully comply with the religious requirements and are remarkably tasty: the company can serve its fasting passengers, for instance, piquant rice with a range of seasonings and baked apples stuffed with pine nuts. We are very respectful towards believers, so the special Lenten menu has already become a sort of a tradition,’

Renova-StroyGroup Akademicheskoye’s technical solutions committee considered a number of innovational solutions on energy-saving and green technologies recently. Among the solutions are the new boiler house making technologies that make it possible to manufacture a boiler with the capacity of 200 gigacalories an hour, which output can be extended to 500 gigacalories an hour. The boiler will be put up in Amundsen St to ensure heating for both Academic district and the other areas in the south-west of Yekaterinburg. The new technologies are expected to raise the boiler house productivity by 15%

The construction of Ural Federal University will begin in Yekaterinburg in 2012, the city council’s press service reports. ‘All our efforts are now focused around making sure we get the land allotments registered on which to put up Ural Federal University and a technological park. These are mainly the allotments within the forestry funds, with some of them belonging to the municipality and some of them belonging to Sverdlovsk Region – that’s a section of Shartash forest. However, most of the allotments are owned by the state, that is, 274 hectares of land,’ says the head of the City Council

Standard & Poor's placed BBB long-term contractor credit ratings of OAO Bank VTB and its daughter enterprise OAO VTB-Leasing on its CreditWatch list, with Negative outlook. At the same time, the two companies’ ruAAA national scale ratings were placed on CreditWatch (with Negative rating outlook) as well. ‘Placing the ratings on CreditWatch reflects the possibility of a strong negative impact that the recent acquisition of Bank of Moscow (no S&P rating) can make on them: the money spent can affect VTB’s capital performance, all risks considered, and the quality of the newly bought

OAO Russian Aluminium bought a 100% shareholding in SUAL. At the same time, it was also reported that Alu Process Holding Limited is no longer the shareholder of this Kamensk-Uralsky-based company.

The international rating agency placed the long-term contractor rating of OAO Bank VTB and its enterprises VTB-Leasing and VTB-Leasing Finance on the Negative rating watch on March 1, 2011, RIA Novosti reports. These ratings are now at BBB. ‘Placing [the ratings – editor’s note] on the rating watch, with possible demotion, reflects the probable strong negative impact on Bank VTB’s capital of the risks associated with the recent acquisition of Bank of Moscow,’ the agency explains.

The renewal of Pegas-Touristik’s chartered flights to Egypt was cancelled recently. The tour operator’s earlier decision was greeted with strong resentment on the part of Rostourism. The company reports that the flights that were supposed to have been operated from Moscow to Hurghada and from Moscow to Sharm El Sheikh cannot actually be operated for reasons beyond the tour operator’s control. Pegas promises to give the tourists their money back in full. All in all, about six hundred people had meant to fly to Egypt. Head of Rostourism press service Oleg Moseyev told Echo Mosckvy (a radio

According to the recent preliminary estimates, Sverdlovsk Region’s enterprises produced about 172,889,600 tons of waste last year, while the amount of recycled waste came to 71,444,500 tons, the report on the region’s environmental status in 2010 says. The company that was responsible for most of the waste was OAO Vanadium Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise. In 2010, the company produced 45,974,000 tons of waste and recycled 6,485,600 tons. Ural Asbestos Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise, with its 36,401,000 tons of manufactured waste and 17,961,700 tons of recycled waste,

The management of Bank Société Générale Vostok’s Yekaterinburg branch explained the nature of its difficulties with one of its customers, OAO Pnevmostroymachine. The bank admits that if creditors take the business apart, a whole range of industries will go under, but the bank is not prepared at this point to stop claiming the debt. We have obligations not only towards our borrowers, but towards our stockholders as well, which means we have to find a mutually acceptable solution. However, we cannot just make a present of the money we once lent. We are willing to negotiate. We do not prevent