The public activists of Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region, are currently collecting signature for the petition to the Russian Federation Public Prosecutor’s Office and the President of the Russian Federation Dmitriy Medvedev’s Administration that calls for looking into the business activity of Russian Standard Bank. The petition was designed by Nizhniy Tagil branch of Russia’s Young Lawyers, a pressure group. The branch’s head Evgeniy Ryakin says they have been getting plenty of complaints regarding the methods the bank in question employs to collect loan debt. What is more, the lawyers

The representatives of Sverdlovsk Region division and Revdinskiy and Nizhneserginskiy departments of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) carried out a scheduled field check of Nizhneserginskiy metal goods plant (NLMK Group’s member). The inspection detected a number of grave health legislation offenses, all of which were related to sanitary arrangements aimed at making the working conditions better and safer. The plant’s recent reconstruction that brought about some new production technologies was assumed to have improved the employees’ labor conditions. However, the

‘We are currently looking into a case involving the local taxi companies; the offense consists in violating the existing advertising laws. In this case, the companies have been declared guilty. We are also considering the question of whether Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport legally carried out a tender and selected Taxi-Gorod as ‘the airport’s exclusive hauler’,’ Head of Sverdlovsk Region division of the Russian Federation Federal Antimonopoly Service Tatiana Kolotova said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘Following the tender, Taxi-Gorod was given a special parking lot on the

It was discovered that VUZ-Bank (Life Financial Group) violated the regulations related to informational transparency on the stock market. This is why Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Market Service of the Russian Federation ruled that VUZ-Bank would have to face administrative liability and pay a fine. The fine comes to 700,000 RUR.

ERGO Rus (an insurance company and member of the German ERGO Group) decided to stop signing new voluntary medical insurance contracts for the time being. ‘The current risks on the Russian medical services market and the state of the Russian laws won’t give an insurer a chance to work efficiently and offer the customers high quality service comparable with the European insurance standards,’ the company explains. ERGO Rus declared, however, that it could guarantee full compliance with all the obligations resulting from the already existing agreements. The company operates its subsidiaries in

A verdict of ‘guilty’ was pronounced upon the head of TOO AstanaEnergoPromStroy & Co Adkham Mirsogatov, who is believed to allow the completion of the building and assembly jobs at the fourth power-generating unit of Beloyarskaya nuclear plant in Sverdlovsk Region without a license, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities reports. Zarechniy district court considered the evidence provided by the public prosecutor from Beloyarskiy district’s prosecution department and decided that Adkham Mirsogatov, who was the General Director of AstanaEnergoPromStroy &

‘Our sales decreased a little bit in September-December 2009, but they started to reach the earlier volumes in January 2010,’ Director of Frey Wille’s Yekaterinburg branch Larissa Kuyantseva said to UrBC. ‘Speaking of last year as a whole, we can definitely say the economic recession did not affect our jewellery shop. Moreover, we did not experience any serious selling difficulties until September 2009. Frey Wille even expanded its business in October 2009 by trying to reach a new audience: namely, we set up a new shop in Europe Trade & Business Center,’ Kuyantseva added. ‘This business

The Federal Financial Market Service of the Russian Federation declared that the issue of E.S.Yalamov Ural Optical & Mechanical Plant’s certified inconvertible interest-bearing bonds (state serial number 4-02-00002-Т as of December 18, 2008) must be halted for the time being. The news has been announced via the Service’s official website.

Reftinskaya state district power plant is a major air and water polluter, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin said while visiting the plant’s premises. ‘To grow greener, the plant needs to switch from the coal produced in Ekibastuz to that made in Kuzbass: this will decrease the amount of harmful emissions by about 30% to 40% as well as make the plant’s performance more efficient. Only 1 million out of 11 million tons used by Reftinskaya to produce electricity last year was actually delivered from Kuznetsk basin last year. However, it is essential that the plant uses at least 4

The internal rules and policy of Moscow-based ZAO KAB Bank Société Générale Vostok and Moscow-based OAO Nordea Bank have not been approved of by the Federal Financial Market Service of the Russian Federation so as to counteract laundering proceeds from criminal activity as well as terrorist financing.

Dmitriy Vinogradov is no longer a shareholder of OAO Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank). He used to own a little over 10% of the bank’s shares, which have recently been sold to VALLAUR LIMITED. Yekaterinburg-based Bank Severnaya Kazna had to undergo a financial recovery procedure at the end of 2008 after it had been very near bankruptcy. The procedure was carried out by the bank’s new owner, Alfa-Bank, and Deposit Insurance Agency. The new proprietor intends to close Bank Severnaya Kazna down as an independent business and is now gradually moving to the bank’s total phase-out. In

‘Lucky Motors’ Yekaterinburg show rooms are currently displaying the car makes designed in 2008 and 2009. We have to explain to the customers willing to buy this year’s models that they will only arrive in March or April,’ Lucky Motors Sales Manager Stepan Pidzhakov explained to an UrBC reporter. ‘For the time being, such customers interested in the newest models can sign a preliminary delivery agreement with us. The minimum down payment will come to 10,000 RUR in this case. One has to bear in mind that the price is only a preliminary one as well, so the customer agreement states that it

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Russian Federation Federal Security Service did not offer any license allowing OOO Inbank to use or distribute any cryptographic aids,’ the division’s press secretary Anna Lastovetskaya informed UrBC. In the meantime, Inbank (formerly known as OOO Uran) keeps testing its Internet-Bank system for the last month and uses it to handle the payments of its private and business customers. Under the current legislation, such services must be licensed. ‘The Federal Act 128 on licensing states that banking activity falls under the provisions described in Article 17

Head of the Federal Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Surveillance Service of the Russian Federation Nikolai Kutyin confirmed a timetable for carrying out scheduled inspections of various Russian enterprises in 2010. For one, the Service’s head office and its regional branches are going to carry out thorough inspections of OAO NK Rosneft, OOO Evraz Holding, OAO Uralkhim, OAO Lukoil, and OAO Gazprom. The companies will be checked for compliance with the industrial safety requirements. As it happens, an explosion occurred at Evraz’s Yestyuninskaya mine based in Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk

‘Setting up hubs is a common thing among foreign airports. Given Koltsovo Airport’s advantageous geographical position and Sverdlovsk Region’s economic situation, we’ve got some excellent prospects for developing into a hub. Small airports are really having a hard time because they have to transfer passengers to Moscow first and only then take them further. Koltsovo, however, intends to compete with Moscow airports by eliminating the connecting flights problems. It’s obvious that connecting flights through Moscow have a number of drawbacks, particularly geographical ones,’ General Director of

‘Last year was rather difficult for our business. An airport is a sort of an acid test for a region’s economy: once the metallurgical, machine-building, and other regional industries have faced the hard times, our passenger turnover decreased by 14.2%,’ General Director of Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport Evgeniy Chudnovskiy announced at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. The airport reports the number of sorties dropped by 15.9% in 2009 compared two 2008 and reached 13,798 sorties altogether. The passenger turnover totaled to 2,169,136 people last year; the number of people using

UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics has already informed its readers a number of times that Vladimir Frolov’s new banking project will probably be called Inbank. This news was now officially confirmed by the entry in the Bank of Russia’s bank register. OOO Inbank was formerly known as OOO Uran Commercial Bank, run by former BOD Chairman of Bank Severnaya Kazna Vladimir Frolov for the last few months. The media first announced that Frolov’s business would probably be called Inbank after several similar domain names had been registered by Vassiliy Yurchenko (who is close

Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank) paid back to Deposit Insurance Agency State Corporation nearly 1.5 billion RUR spent on the bank’s financial recovery. Within this sum, 1 billion RUR constitutes the main debt and 0.49 billion RUR makes up the interest, the spokesperson for Deposit Insurance Agency informed UrBC. All in all, about 7.8 billion RUR was spent in the effort to save the bank from collapsing. Bank Severnaya Kazna found itself on the brink of bankruptcy at the end of 2008 and was unable to restore its liquidity level independently. As a result, the bank got a new owner,

The internal rules and policy of Alfa-Bank, LOKO-Bank, and Bank Vozrozhdeniye, as well as of a number of other banks, have not been approved of by the Federal Financial Market Service of the Russian Federation so as to counteract laundering proceeds from criminal activity as well as terrorist financing.

‘Our goal was to undertake the financial recovery of banks with some liquidity shortage but functional business processes and capable of making profit. However, it is only Gazenergobank that has shown some signs of final recovery this year,’ Vice President for Credit Risks of Life Group’s Probusinessbank Yaroslav Alekseyev said to Kommersant. For one, Bank24.ru, which was faced with a severe liquidity outflow at the end of 2008, was unable to cope with its problems itself and had to undergo financial recovery procedures. The bank was acquired by Probusinessbank (Life Financial Group); the new