The 17th Court of Arbitration & Appeals overruled the verdict returned by the court of first instance and made OOO Aerolux, a travel agency, face administrative liability, the spokesperson for the court reports. This means the administrative lawsuit which was instituted against OOO Aerolux by Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor’s (the state consumer rights watchdog) Central Yekaterinburg Department in May 2010 (after a complaint placed by a dissatisfied customer) has now resulted in the decision that the defendant must face administrative liability for failing to cater for the

Police officers from Tagilstroyevskiy investigative department of Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region, are now doing a pre-inquiry check of the scene of the accident at Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works (NTMK). In addition, the victims are to undergo a forensic examination. A fire-causing explosion occurred on the premises of NTMK Koksokhimproizvodstvo, Evraz Holding’s by-product coke division, at 10:00 AM local time. The explosion at the coal preparation shop’s breaking plant block left five workers burned and injured; four of them have been taken to Nizhniy Tagil Municipal Hospital 4.

Starting November 3, 2011, Ural Airlines resumes operating its Yekaterinburg-Hainan flights. The flight will be offered once a fortnight, every Wednesday. The tickets for Yekaterinburg-Sanya-Yekaterinburg flight are available in booking offices and via the airline’s website www.uralairlines.com.

Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) produced a financial report (compiled in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards) for the third quarter of 2010. The company incurred 240.1 million RUR worth of net losses against 132.4 million RUR worth of net profit in the second quarter of the year. Despite the growing revenues and other profits in the third quarter of 2010, the company’s financial performance turned out to be less successful than in the previous quarter because TMK made extra profits from its daughter enterprises’ dividends in the second quarter of the year.

The project of the Radisson SAS Hotel has been considered by Yekaterinburg city development council recently. The forty-eight-storey building will supposedly be located at the intersection of Malyshev St and Krasnoarmeyskaya St. The land allotment is actually situated in the backyard of Bolshoy Ural, an already existing hotel. This allotment was offered to the developers on the same day the one for the Park Inn Hotel was provided. However, the latter has been operating for a quite a while already, whereas things haven’t been progressing with the Radisson SAS Hotel for a number of reasons,

OAO Nomos-Bank announced it had bought a 19.98% shareholding in OAO Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank. In fact, Nomos-Bank acquired a 100% state in OOO IST-Capital which owns 19.98% of OAO Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank. The company is part of Alexander Nesis’s IST Group; now Nesis is one of Nomos-Bank’s primary stockholders, the bank’s press service reports. Both OAO Nomos-Bank and OAO Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank will keep operating under their current brand names.

OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) has successfully undergone the auditing procedures aimed at checking whether the company’s quality management system complies with the international standards recently. The certification process involved plate mill shop 9 (tested for compliance with ISO 9001:2008) and oxygen converter and steel-smelting shops (tested for compliance with ISO/TU 16949:2009). MMK was also successfully audited for compliance with the STO GAZPROM 9001:2006 standard; the certification process involved plate mill shop 9, the enterprise’s PR Department reports. In the

RENOVA StroyGroup’s RSG Engineering Infrastructure received Sberbank of Russia’s approval for an 800-million-ruble loan for a period of six years. The money will be directed to further development of water, heating, and power supply networks of Academic district in Yekaterinburg. ‘RENOVA StroyGroup sets very strict requirements for the constructed engineering infrastructure facilities to make sure the customers who use our communal housing services get the best possible quality. This is also part of the energy-saving and energy-efficiency program advocated by the Russian Federation

52% of the shopping space in the newly opened ComsoMall in Yekaterinburg is being used at the moment, while renting agreements have been signed for 78% of the space available. DVI Holding reports they are hoping for this figure to reach 90% over the next six months. This is going to be the task of Alexei Maltsev, appointed the shopping center’s CEO for a period of twelve months. Alexei Maltsev used to run and maintain some large commercial estate structures in Yekaterinburg and had a business of his own immediately prior to this appointment.

OAO MRSK Urala, a power supplier, reports its net profit went from 984.75 million RUR in the second quarter of 2010 down to 758.84 million RUR in the third quarter of the year. The company says the drop in profits was brought about by growing repair expenses and the need to build up bad debt reserves.

Yuri Kovalchuk’s National Media Group is planning to leave the telecommunications business and is now looking for a customer willing to buy a 51.8% shareholding in its National Telecommunications Holding, Vedomosti reports. National Telecommunications owns Moscow’s largest cable operator Mostelecom through National Cable Network, its 100% daughter enterprise. The holding also owns the providers of cable TV and broad-band Internet connection in Moscow Region, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, and Kurgan. All in all, the company renders its services to 4 million TV subscribers and

A meeting on freight companies and railway carriage owners’ cooperation was organized in Yekaterinburg recently. Deputy General Director of First Freight Company (OAO PGK) Vladimir Sosipatorov reported the organization had been providing haulage services for various companies throughout the entire operation field of Russian Railways for three years already. ‘Our haulage output reached 300 million this year, and we could do even better,’ he said. ‘We are currently suffering from a shortage of some carriage types, so our contract-signing preferences are normally based on economic expediency and

Counterfeit, a special police operation, is still in progress in Sverdlovsk Region at the moment. The operation is targeted at detecting and preventing production and sales of counterfeit products. Officers from the local economic offense department have already inspected 186 retail outlets and disclosed twenty-one instances of law infringement. Thirteen administrative lawsuits and two criminal ones have been instituted as a result; over 8,000 copies of counterfeit products worth over 2 million RUR altogether have been confiscated so far. The law-enforcement officers also found out that

The reason OAO TyumenEnergo’s net profit went down in the third quarter of 2010 was that the company obtained fewer revenues from the technological hookup of power consumers. The business reports its net profits reached 1.76 billion RUR in the second quarter of 2010 but only 897.23 million RUR in the third quarter of the year.

The net profit of OAO Magnit amounted to 175.65 million RUR in the third quarter of 2010, whereas in the previous quarter, the figure came to 197.1 million RUR. The company explains the decrease in profits has to do with audit services-related expenses and an overhaul given to the organization’s immovable assets.

‘The car dealers still haven’t been able to reach the pre-recession sales levels comparable with the years 2007 and 2008. This means the recession is far from being over yet. The current automobile sales, in fact, only make up a quarter of what was sold in the year 2007, even though the figure could reach up to 60% if there existed sufficient car quotas,’ OOO Avtoland Holding’s Marketing & Advertising Director Svetlana Petrovikh said to UrBC. ‘The somewhat restored consumer demand has already caused a shortage of the most popular makes, so now the best-selling cars are inexpensive,

London School of Business and Finance (LSBF) and Facebook set up a JV that will allow Facebook users around the world to get free access to MBA course materials, RIA Novosti reports. All one has to do is download LSBF Global MBA application on one’s computer to get acquainted with the lectures, take part in discussions, look into case studies, ‘meet’ the top managers of the world’s leading businesses, and enjoy student interaction. The application provides the users with approximately eight hundred hours worth of multimedia materials, Vedomosti says. At least 500,000 people from around the

Swedbank Group’s OAO Swedbank will keep cutting back on its retail operations in Russia in order to concentrate on the services rendered to business customers based in Scandinavia, the bank’s new Chairwoman of the Board Elena Lozovaya said to RBC daily. ‘The bank will be going through a transition period until the year 2012. Our main future focus will be providing services to the business customers on Swedbank Group’s ‘home’ markets,’ the executive explained. OAO Swedbank already stopped offering term deposits, bank cards, and individual safety vaults to private customers on October 1, 2010.

Recession is now felt less keenly by the Russian banking system, whereas the banks’ asset quality and capital structure keep improving and the liquidity is rising due to growing deposit volumes, the international rating agency says in its report entitled Russian Banks Start to Recover as Crisis Subsides. ‘The measures taken to counteract the recession and improve the market infrastructure (especially the steps targeted at giving the banks access to liquid funds) did reduce the system risks a bit, so Fitch expects that, in case of another market emergency, banks will receive support with

‘Orenburg Airlines Goa-Yekaterinburg flight was delayed for many hours because of an emergency at Goa Airport. For one, some serious runway problems were detected, so the flight had to be postponed by ten hours. The plane took off at 3:20 PM local time, so the passengers will arrive in Yekaterinburg at 11:30 PM. Meals were provided for the travelers for the time of the delay,’ Sunrise Tour informed UrBC. Now according to Yekaterinburg Koltsovo Airport’s interactive announcement board, flight ORB-9636 was to have arrived from Goa at 11:50 AM local time.