‘Given the increasing competition among its airlines, Russia does not really need to introduce more hub airports,’ Russia’s Deputy Transport Minister Valeriy Okulov said at the 7th International Russian Wings conference. Okulov explained some of the Russian airports simply failed to work, while others managed to keep up with the quality and could therefore hope to outlive the recession, ITAR-TASS quoted the executive as saying. ‘We just don’t need all these impressive-looking projects providing for numerous hubs, this isn’t going to happen.’ he observed. ‘A hub airport in the west of Russia

The net losses of Life Group’s VUZ-Bank rose from 19.722 million RUR in the second quarter of the year to 37.61 million RUR in the third quarter. The bank explains this had to do with the need to build up on the bad debt reserves, that is, to raise them up to 51.251 million RUR.

‘Excessively high employee turnover has always been Concern Kalina’s major problem. The company does not comply with the Labor Code regulations, and the firing process is way too easy there,’ says Alexei Slyazin of Sverdlovsk Region Federation of Trade Unions. ‘The picket aimed at protesting against the company’s policy went through okay. It had actually been authorized by the mayor. We were standing opposite Kalina’s building with posters that read, ‘Concern Kalina is a workforce grinder,’ ‘If you are afraid of control, you’ve got something to hide,’ ‘Goryaev claims to be proud of Labor Code

The value of Bank Severnaya Kazna’s assets went down by 3,228,189,000 RUR, or 10.31% (from 31303,971,000 RUR on July 1, 2009 down to 28,075,782,000 RUR on October 1, 2009). The reasons for the decline were the bank’s shrinking lending portfolio and outflow of money from the bank’s correspondent accounts.

The Russian Federation State Labor Inspectorate received an official request to prosecute METRO Cash & Carry’s management for Labor Code violations, Sverdlovsk Region’s trade unions news bulletin says. The labor inspectors from Sverdlovsk Region Federation of Trade Unions examined the working conditions in this multinational corporations’ Yekaterinburg subsidiary in April 2009. They detected numerous labor code offenses such as lack of compensation or longer holidays for people involved in hazardous activities, no attempts to improve on the microclimate of refrigerator departments, and no

‘It took me a long time to understand why Enel OGK-5 has organized public hearings that do not comply with the existing legislation. Having read the comments you gave to the media, I can now see that you actually admit you don’t know the Russian laws and that you never presented any environmental estimates of the plant’s activity at these hearings,’ Chairman of the International Socio-Environmental Union Vladimir Terekhov says in his letter to Enel OGK-5 PR Director Vasiliy Zakharov. What Zakharov actually said was that the multi-faceted evaluation of their company’s environmental impact was

The volume of loans offered by Uraltransbank to private for-profit organizations despite overdraft went down by 24.28% (from 104.396 million RUR to 79.041 million RUR) in August 2009.

On October 7, 2009, the Supreme Court of Italy is to consider the Russian authorities’ appeal against the Italian court’s refusal to extradite Bank24.ru’s former BOD member Alexei Kalinichenko. The former executive is suspected of large-scale fraud, says the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The extradition request was placed with the Italian authorities by the Russian Federation General Prosecutor’s Office international legal cooperation department on July 3, 2008. By then, Kalinichenko had already been detained by the Italian Interpol

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by the Federal Tax Service against Aston Construction Company. The Service’s local division (based in Yekaterinburg’s Verkh-Isetskiy district) asked the court to declare the builder insolvent, as the company’s tax debts had run up to 953,880 RUR over the last thee months. The defendant has not provided the court with any comments or data so far.

Trade union activists are going to picket Yekaterinburg-based office buildings of Concern Kalina and Uralplastik on World Action Day, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Trade Unions Federation reports. ‘In both companies, the workers are trying to set up trade unions despite the management’s disapproval. Kalina’s top executives have always been against employee self-organization, even though the right to join a trade union is guaranteed to every Russian citizen by the federal legislation. The management must remember, however, that it’s a free country that has no slaves doing only what

Perm-based AKB Uralskiy Finansoviy Dom’s losses skyrocketed by 599.46% in the third quarter of 2009 and thus amounted to 229.067 million RUR. The bank’s second quarter was not much better, as the losses came to 32.749 million RUR. The bank reports these losses have to do with the need to create bad debt compensation reserves.

This October, the Ural division of Rostechnadzor (the state technological and nuclear safety watchdog) is going to check VSMPO-Avisma Corporation and its daughter enterprises VSMPO-LESTA, VSMPO-Stroitel, Aluminum Profile, and VSChZL Ruslich for compliance with the industrial safety regulations. The inspectors will make sure the companies meet the electrical and environmental safety requirements as well as the Russian zoning standards. The inspection committee is to be chaired by Deputy Head of Rostechnadzor’s Ural division Anatoly Soloviev.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court satisfied Bank VTB’s sub-claim regarding the security for their main claim against Temerso and Nevyansk Machine-Building Plant. The court ruled that Temerso had no right to dispose its 74% shareholding in the plant’s authorized capital; in case the company does try to do anything with the share, it might have to pay a fine. The plaintiff originally took the case to court in order to make the two defendants pay back the 299,853,836.73-ruble loan.

The court of Nizhniy Tagil’s Dzerzhinskiy district ruled in favor of the local prosecutor’s demand that Uralvagonzavod pay moral damage compensation to the plant’s former worker who’d had an accident at work. The court’s decision came into effect on October 6, 2009, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities reports. ‘It was detected in the course of our inquiry that the plant’s foremen were to blame for the accident, so the victim was not guilty of what had happened,’ the spokesperson explains. Dzerzhinskiy district’s public prosecutor, who took the case to court

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court started processing the bankruptcy application of Nevyansk concrete goods plant. The company placed its application with the court on September 3, 2009 after its debts had run to over 100,000 RUR. The application was accepted by the court. The plant had actually faced some administrative liability in the past for putting up an apartment block in Nevyansk without conducting any state examination of their design documentation or engineering survey. The plant had also failed to get the official quotas for maximum permissible discharge of atmospheric pollutants.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin sent a letter to the Russian Federation Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov regarding the three-year contract the state had signed with the regional Ural car factory. The agreement was signed in 2007 and provided for the delivery of 8,390 vehicles to the Russian military forces in 2008-2010. The contract was worth over 11.7 billion RUR altogether. The spokesperson for the Governor reports the factory has been meeting the contractual obligations and will deliver 2,300 vehicles to the army in 2009. However, the Governor explains in his letter to the

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin sent a letter to the Russian Federation Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov regarding the three-year contract the state had signed with the regional Ural car factory. The agreement was signed in 2007 and provided for the delivery of 8,390 vehicles to the Russian military forces in 2008-2010. The contract was worth over 11.7 billion RUR altogether. The spokesperson for the Governor reports the factory has been meeting the contractual obligations and will deliver 2,300 vehicles to the army in 2009. However, the Governor explains in his letter to the

The Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans offered by Uralfinprombank to private for-profit organizations despite overdraft declined by 27.06% (from 22.011 million RUR to 16.053 million RUR) in August 2009.

ALNAS (part of ChTPZ Group’s Rimera O&G maintenance division) delivered a set of electric-centrifugal pump units to Serbia’s state-run oil company NIS. NIS has no experience in terms of using these units, as all their oil has so far been produced with the help of deep-well oil pumps. This is why the two parties’ contract provides for the installation and start-up of the machinery in three pilot wells as well as for training of Serbian staff by ALNAS experts. ‘This project opens a brand new Serbian oil-production equipment market to us. Provided all the tests go smoothly, our orders for

Aston Construction Company is now on the list of enterprises whose debt to the Russian Federation budget has exceeded 1 million RUR. The list was has been prepared by Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Tax Service; it comprises 187 legal entities altogether.