The premises of a Yekaterinburg-based food depot (namely, the land allotment and some office buildings) worth 19 million RUR have recently been arrested by the officers of the court, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Service of Court Officers reports. ‘Our district division is now handling the enforcement proceedings based on a warrant issued by Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court. The warrant states that the debtor must pay 16,317,000 RUR to Express Market Plus. Besides, another warrant issued by this court states that the food depot must pay 20,002,000 RUR to

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is to resume the hearing of the case involving Yekaterinburg subsidiaries of ROSBANK and Standard-Reserve, the insurance company, on November 24, 2009. The two companies might be charged with violating the Federal Competition Protection Act 135 FZ (Article 11, part 1). The final decision should be taken by the next day. The bank and the insurer are suspected of colluding in a manner that could impose disadvantageous contract terms upon their customers. The thing is, the insurer agreed to pay the insurance compensation to the

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is currently handling the case of Gazpromneft-Ural and Lukoil-Permnefteprodukt; the two oil companies have allegedly introduced monopolistically high gasoline prices As far as Lukoil-Permnefteprodukt is concerned, the company is suspected of setting and maintaining sky-high prices for AI-80, AI-92, and AI-95 gasoline and for diesel fuel in Yekaterinburg since November 1, 2008. Gazpromneft-Ural is suspected of doing the same in Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Tagil, Rezh, and Kamensk-Uralskiy.

‘Following some negotiations, two dealing agreements have been signed with Avtosan and Okami,’ Ford Motor Company’s press officer Ekaterina Kulinenko informed UrBC reporters. Ford chose its new Yekaterinburg dealers as early as September 2009; prior to this, Avtoland Holding had been the car manufacturer’s only representative in the city. ‘Avtosan and Okami have been our official dealers since mid-October. We expect both car centers to start rendering their customers a full range of sales and after-sales services by the end of the year,’ Kulinenko noted.

‘I’m not sure the reopening of Palma-Tours’ office in Pushkin St can actually be taken seriously. I think I’ll wait till the unhappy customers have placed their complaints and then see what conclusions can be made,’ President of Sverdlovsk Region Information and Tourism Center Vadim Viner said to UrBC. The notorious tour operator that used to offer its services to dwellers of Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen Regions and Knanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region had earlier claimed to have gone out of business. The company’s offices closed down about a week ago. However, one of its

Alexander Misharin has by now been adjured and assumed the office of Governor of Sverdlovsk Region. The decision to make him Governor was taken during a joint meeting of the Legislative Assembly’s both chambers in Yekaterinburg on November 23, 2009. In fact, the initial decision to this extent was made during a joint meeting on November 17, 2009 when Misharin was presented to the deputies by Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko. The second meeting was attended by the Russian Federation Transport Minister Igor Levitin (who

The Federal Financial Market Service decided to annul the licenses allowing Pervouralsk-based Universal Commercial Bank to perform brokerage and dealing operations on the securities market. This decision was made after the bank’s banking operation license had been declared invalid by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation’s order OD-684 as of October 28, 2009.

‘The profit resulting from selling Sverdlovsk Region’s 185-million-ruble share in Europe Business Center is expected to make up the lion’s share of the total revenues (that is, 227 million RUR) that came from selling public property to private owners in 2009. I believe the current owner of the business center is the most likely customer for this share,’ says Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Management Minister Alexei Molotkov. ‘The same is true of Uspenskiy Mall. Some of its assets are managed by the regional unitary enterprise that has been allowed by the regional authorities to sell the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg against VIM-AVIA Airline; the plaintiff wants to be paid 1.99 million RUR worth of debts and rent. In the course of the preliminary hearing, the court decided that the handling of the case should be postponed until the parties have tried to reach an out-of-court settlement. The court’s next hearing was scheduled for November 20, 2009.

The credit rating service called off Rusfinance Bank’s ratings upon the bank’s own request. Rusfinance Bank’s long- and short-term contractor’s ratings were preliminarily affirmed at BB+ and B, respectively, with Negative Rating Outlook. Also, the bank’s national scale rating was preliminarily affirmed at ruAA+, with Negative Rating Outlook.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) closed up the tender aimed at determining the coupon interest rate for its 5bn-ruble BO-01 bond issue valid for 1,092 days (3 year). The issue provides for an annual offer and the coupon period comes to 182 days. The investors placed 255 applications for the tender worth 19.9 billion RUR altogether, so the issue was actually oversubscribed by nearly 300%. According to the results of the tender, the annual interest rate for the first and the second coupons of MMK’s bond issue was set at 9.45%. The coupon yield during the first year of circulation will

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to look into two claims laid by local banks against Pnevmostroymashina and PSM-Gidravlika on November 19, 2009. Sberbank of Russia’s Oktyabrskoye division 1794 wants to be paid 179.66 million RUR worth of debt and to have the defendants’ real estate assets (some buildings and land allotments) arrested. TransCreditBank demands that the defendants pay it 104.26 million RUR; the bank also asked for the seizure of their buildings and land allotments, but this application was turned down by the court. In the meantime, Pnevmostroymashina is already undergoing

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court has recently started to process the claim laid by Mikhail Maksimov against Leonid Itskov and Uralincombank Ural Innovational Commercial Bank (UIC-Bank) regarding the plaintiff’s right to a shareholding in the bank’s authorized capital. The preliminary court hearing needed to understand all the circumstances essential to handling the claim and getting evidence and proof is to take place on Thursday. The whole thing began in July 2009 when the bank got many new owners. According to the company’s official website July listings, Leonid Itskov owned 7.52% of

Head of Russian Pension Fund’s Sverdlovsk Region division Sergey Dubinkin was detained on his way to Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg on November 19, 2009. The operation was carried out by the officers of Ural Federal District’s division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; this was done within the framework of the criminal lawsuit regarding the embezzlement of 955 million RUR belonging to the Pensions Fund from the accounts of Bank VEFK-Ural. The spokesperson for the law-enforcement agency reports Dubinkin was supposedly going to flee to Moscow. He is now kept in a detention ward. This head

Russkiy Narodniy Bank intends to make Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Corporation pay it over 10 million RUR. The bank placed a claim against Uralvagonzavod and Uralvagonagro with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court and now insists on being paid 10,000,000 RUR worth of the promissory note debt, 106,944 RUR worth of interest, and 106,944 RUR worth of fines (as stated in Paragraph 48 on the Provision on Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes. The defendant refused to agree with the claims since on the date the disputed promissory note was signed the company’s General Director Nikolai

Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport is going to raise its jet fuel prices by 3.3% on November 23, 2009. ‘The increase in our retail price is a follow-up on the rising supplier’s prices. All Russian airports have had to raise their prices recently, and ours is actually the same as the market’s average one,’ the airport’s press officer reports. The airport last changed fuel prices on September 18, 2009 when the price rose by 6.7%.

‘Foreign banks and crediting agencies are willing to cooperate with the Russian companies and are very positive about Russia’s future economic development,’ Landesbank Berlin AG Export Financing Director Bernd Schmidt announced at an Interfax press conference. ‘Sometimes direct interaction is possible, including cases when a bank and agency finance some long-term projects. In most cases, however, a customer needs some Russian bank as an intermediary. Actually, we choose our Russian partners very carefully and work only with the most reliable banks,’ he added.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court resolved case А60-45339/2009-С11 as of November 2, 2009 by declaring DEKRA PLUS insolvent. The company will now have to undergo six-month bankruptcy proceedings. Vladimir Rozhdestvenskiy of Delo Self-Regulatory Organization of Trustees in Bankruptcy Noncommercial Partnership has been appointed the company’s trustee in bankruptcy.

The sales revenues of Sverdlovsk Region-based VSMPO-Avisma went down by 3.6 billion RUR, or 16% in January-September 2009. The revenue figure thus only came to 19.2 billion RUR. The company says the revenues dropped because of reduced sales output. However, the drop in sales revenues was partially made up for by 18% decrease in the prime cost of the company’s produce, VSMPO-Avisma Corporation says. The corporation’s gross profit declined by 7.5 billion RUR, or 12.6% in the third quarter of 2009. Its net profit plunged by 33.4% and amounted to 977.171 million RUR, whereas the return on assets

The internal rules and policy of Bank VTB Severo-Zapad and Citibank Commercial Bank have not been approved of by the Federal Financial Market Service so as to prevent money laundering