Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank) introduced some fines for its business customers. The first fines were actually launched as early as October 2009 but it was only after they got their bank statements that the customers found out that the cost of account maintenance and account transactions had increased considerably. According to the bank’s official website news, the maintenance of type B account (which means the customer must bring paper copies of all the payment documents to the bank) now costs 10,000 RUR for all companies that use the bank’s services. The price holds as long

The employees of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) offered to donate blood for the victims of a major fire accident in Perm-based Lame Horse Club. The municipal health authorities and MMK also declared that they were ready to send their combustion experts to Perm if this should be necessary. The fire broke out in Lame Horse Club in Kuibyshev St at about 1 AM last Saturday when the club was holding its 8th-year anniversary party. Out of the 500-square-meter building, 400 sq m burned down to ashes. According to the preliminarily available data, some fireworks exploded during a

‘Giving Enel OGK-5 a new head would be the right thing to do. I’d say the company might have considered dismissing Anatoly Kopsov at least partly because of his plans to introduce a dry ash handling system at Reftinskaya state district power plant,’ says Chairman of the International Socio-Environmental Union’s Sverdlovsk Region division Vladimir Terekhov. In the meantime, RBC Daily reports the current head of Enel OGK-5 Anatoly Kopsov might really resign soon. ‘Following all the environmentalists’ protests and the scandal around the introduction of the dry ash handling system, the power

Expert-Ural’s analysts came up with their monthly rating of Yekaterinburg-based banks. The rating is based on the local banks’ performance as of November 1, 2009. According to this rating, Koltso Urala Commercial Bank was given the 8th position rather than the 9th position it was given on October 1, 2009. The bank’s improved development indicators also helped the company improve its position in the national bank rating, the spokesperson for Koltso Urala says. ‘Koltso Urala intends to develop and grow rapidly. Our main challenge for the coming year is to be at the top of Sverdlovsk Region’s

Evgeniy Chudnovskiy was appointed General Director of Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg. The decision to this extent was made in the course of an extraordinary general meeting on December 4, 2009. Chudnovskiy won 52% of votes among all of those who attended the meeting to settle this issue. According to the shareholders’ decision, the newly appointed GD is going to remain in office for three years. The airport’s former General Director Kirill Shubin resigned in November 2009 to become the Director of Sverdlovsk Region State Order Department. Evgeniy Chudnovskiy was born in Moscow on May 25,

The General Director of Enel OGK-5 Anatoly Kopsov might soon resign and be succeeded by RAO UES of Russia’s former Strategic Director and former head of Rosenergo Dmitriy Akhanov, RBC Daily reports. The company explained to the newspaper that Kopsov’s contract was valid through April 30, 2010. This was the only comment provided by Enel on this issue. Among its various assets, Enel OGK-5 comprises Reftinskaya and Sredneuralskaya state district power plants, both of which are based in Sverdlovsk Region. ‘The former head of Mosenergo Anatoly Kopsov was on good terms with Eduard Rossel,

‘The opening of KomsoMALL Trade & Entertainment Center has been scheduled for the last quarter of 2010. The dates have been set several times, so the final one had to provide a substation time reserve just in case,’ Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev’s press officer Ilona Starodubtseva said to UrBC. PRIZMA Trade & Entertainment Center will also get opened in the fourth quarter of 2010. Both malls were in fact supposed to have been opened in 2009, but their investors’ financial troubles made the timely implementation of the project very difficult.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) signed a five-year agreement with Anzherskaya, Koksovaya, Ziminka, and Krasnogorskaya processing plants for the delivery of sinter coal to MMK. MMK PR Department reports the agreement is valid for 2010-2014 and provides for the annual delivery of up to 3.5 million tons of high quality sinter coal concentrate to the enterprise. ‘This agreement means we have our coke and by-product process facilities’ sinter coal needs fully covered. The guaranteed supply of good quality sinter coal will make it possible for MMK to keep implementing its economic

The recent meeting of Chelyabinsk Region recession-fighting committee was devoted to the problems of Katav-Ivanovskiy Mechanical Plant and to the measures taken to improve the financial and economic situation and to protect the workers’ rights. The company’s General Director Yuri Kozhevnikov said the plant’s orders had shrunk considerably against the ante-recession level as early as the fall of 2008. Their storehouses had over 100 million RUR worth of produce. However, the plant found itself unable to attract new orders due to lack of operating assets, as all the cash was directed to paying

The founder of Global Gaming Expo (GGE) Alexei Kalinichenko is not going to be extradited to Russia yet, even though the Supreme Court of Italy sustained the Russian authorities’ claim to this extent. A former member of Bank24.ru Board of Directors, Kalinichenko dealt in trading on Forex foreign exchange market through an offshore Livingston Investment and through Bank24.ru. The money needed for the trading operations was attracted through a number of ad hoc firms, including GGE. The trader promised its customers an annual yield of 30% to 200%. The company stopped paying its investors in

Alfa-Bank’s Alfa-Click, the e-banking service, gets occasional glitches, the bank’s customers complain to UrBC. In fact, the customers had been unable to perform any deposit transactions online for a few days in a row. For one, the online account management service was hardly available on November 27-30, 2009. Alfa-Bank’s press officer has already admitted the bank had a problem with its e-services at the end of November. However, the bank was unable to explain what had been the reason behind these problems. It could actually have been the imperfection of the bank’s technological system.

Belaya Bashnya Invest Investment Company placed its insolvency application with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court. The date of the first hearing has not been set yet. The company’s license allowing it to perform brokerage and dealing operations and deal in securities management was annulled by the Federal Financial Market Service as early as September 2009. The decision was preceded by the company’s own application and the examination of some documents that proved Belaya Bashnya Invest had no failed liabilities. In fact, the company’s management declared a year ago that they were going to

Sverdlovsk Region Aviation Court is to look into the claim laid by Rosoboronexport Federal State Unitary Enterprise (the state defense agency) against Ural Civil Aviation Plant. The plaintiff insists on being paid 2.28 million RUR. According to the case materials, Rosoboronexport believes the plant should have paid the agency a 5% commission off all the contracts the defendant has signed regarding the repair and export of military air engines. During a preliminary court hearing, the plaintiff placed an application for raising its claims up to 2.51 million RUR. This request was sustained by

Yekaterinburg division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) carried out ten unscheduled inspections and administrative investigations and four scheduled inspections of nine travel agents in January-October 2009. The inspections were completed in cooperation with the public prosecution authorities for transportation after some complaints had been placed by the companies’ customers. Among the inspected companies were Kollektsiya Puteshestviy, Eldorado Tour Plus, Alfa-Travel, TBK Inturline, Severnaya Palmyra, TF Aeroluxe, Sezon Otpuskov, and Fond Mira Group. Rospotrebnadzor

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court will resume the hearing of the claim laid by Mikhail Maksimov against Leonid Itskov and Ural Innovational Commercial Bank (Uralincombank, UIC Bank) on December 2, 2009. The plaintiff insists on his right to a share in the bank’s authorized capital. Maksimov claims that this share should come to 12.5% of the bank’s shares, which amounts to about 5.3 million RUR. As it happens, the defendants did not provide any response to this claim in the course of the preliminary court hearing on November 19, 2009. The court also decided to get a number of strangers to

Bank24.ru (now the asset of Life Group’s Probusinessbank) is to reduce the interest rate on the customers’ account balance on December 6, 2009. The interest rate offered for the money the clients keep in the bank’s online and Visa accounts will come to 6% a year, which will be 2% lower than the previous figure of 8%. This is not the first time Bank24.ru has decreased the interest rates it offers for the account balance. The original offer came to as much as 11% a year.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin attended the opening ceremony of a new multi-level road junction on a loop road next to Chelyabinsk. The Governor thanked all the builders who took part in the project and spoke very approvingly of the quality of their work. ‘This is a hi-tech piece of work that is very important for the region. It looks grand, beautiful, and very modern,’ Petr Sumin said. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, the junction was made available to the motorists as soon as the symbolic red ribbon had been cut. This junction belongs to Chelyabinsk orbital

Nissan Motor Rus warned the owners of Nissan X-Trail automobiles living in Sverdlovsk Region that some elements of the steering gear and the fuel system of the cars might not have been assembled properly. ‘Nissan experts said some of these vehicles had to be inspected. Since the steering gear and the fuel system are the vital parts of a car that impact the driver’s safety directly, it is essential to make sure as soon as possible that nothing prevents them from operating normally,’ the letter sent to some of Nissan X-Trail owners and signed by Nissan Motor Rus After-Sale Services Director

Following a series of hearings, the court fully sustained all the claims laid by consumers against Alfa-Travel, which helped prevent a total 832,600 RUR worth of damage to these consumers. What is more, Alfa-Travel will have to pay 10,000 RUR for moral damage done to the consumers and a 124,800 RUR penalty for refusing to meet the plaintiffs’ claims in an out-of-court settlement, the spokesperson for Yekaterinburg division of Rospotrebnadzor (the consumer rights watchdog) reports. A Rospotrebnadzor expert who was involved in the case came to the conclusion that Alfa-Travel had actually

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) launched its blast furnace 1 recently. According to the company’s PR Department, the furnace was first placed into the reserve category after a first-class overhaul but was later re-launched because of the need to give an overhaul to the second blast furnace. So blast furnace 1 is now gradually going back to its full production capacity, which means MMK is currently using seven out of eight blast furnaces altogether. In addition to re-launching blast furnace 1, the enterprise also started using its coke furnace battery 3. The battery had been