A.K. Serov Metallurgical Plant (member of UMMC Holding) was able to prove the compliance of its environmental management system with the ISO 14001:2004 requirements to the auditors, UMMC press service reports. The audit procedure was carried out by TUV Rheinland, the global leader on the independent examination and evaluation services market. Over the four days of the audit, the company’s experts inspected about twenty of the plant’s shops and departments. According to TUV Rheinland’s leading auditor Irina Gabova, the plant’s management system is being perfectly maintained and continually

Alfa-Bank’s Yekaterinburg offices introduced an obligatory service for customers using their individual safety vaults; the commission charged for the service comes to 6,000 RUR a year for vaults with dimensions of 300mm x 550mm x 450 mm (height, length, and width, respectively), the bank’s Customer Support Center informed an UrBC reporter. This means Alfa-Bank actually makes any customer willing to rent a safety vault for any period of time open a bank account with them. The bank representatives have so far been unable to explain why this account is being required. According to the Customer

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin held a meeting on Zlatoust Metallurgical Plant’s (ZMZ) problems. The meeting was attended by Chairman of the regional Legislative Assembly Vladimir Myakush, Deputy Governor Yuri Klepov, Minister for Industry Evgeniy Teftelev, and Mayor of Zlatoust Dmitriy Migashkin. As for the plant, the General Director of Estar Group Mikhail Rakov, his first Deputy Nikolai Kamyshev, CEO ZMZ Sergey Khomyanin and ZMZ’s Chairman of Trade Union Marat Safiev were present. Sumin declared the current situation was unacceptable. ‘The crisis has affected the region’s entire

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin demanded in the course of the recent meeting with heads of the region’s municipalities that all the wage arrears should be eliminated within a week. All in all, the regional enterprises’ debt to their own workers had reached 102.8 million RUR by June 1, 2009, with thirty-four companies owing money to 7,800 employees. The Governor feels this isn’t an overwhelming sum on the regional level, so each and every of the debtor enterprises must be handled individually. ‘You’re actually protecting your pockets and not the people. If we don’t protect them, no

‘Our tenth Airbus 320 airplane (acquired from a British company) has recently arrived in Yekaterinburg, with another one on the way and two more expected at the end of June. In fact, we’ll be running twelve Airbus aircraft in mid-June, two of which are going to be Airbus 321 ones and ten will belong to the A 320 family. These are the planes we are planning to hit the winter season with,’ Ural Airlines Commercial Director Kirill Skuratov announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘We are launching the new non-stop Yekaterinburg-Beijing flight on July 1, 2009, since the airplanes with

Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor (the industrial safety watchdog) and the regional labor inspection completed the investigation of an accident that took place at Uralkhimplast on April 15, 2009. It was detected that an explosion occurred at the ion exchanger unit because of neglected technological regulation. As a result, the reactor was over-filled with excess amount of ammonia solution over a very short period of time, causing an uncontrollable exothermal reaction. The lack of accident-preventing automatic protection and violation of the industrial safety rules at the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by Microsoft Corporation against Gorizont Ltd regarding the 384,188-ruble compensation. The case has been united with the claim laid by Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. against Gorizont regarding the 1,222,817.96 –ruble compensation for copyright abuse. The defendant has recently provided some documents indicating that the computers related to the alleged offense belong to N.A. Semikhatov Scientific Production Association (NPO Avtomatika), which is why the plaintiff asked for making the enterprise an intervener with one

URSA Bank and MDM-Bank’s ATM networks are now operating under the same range of tariff schemes and offers. The holders of Visas and MasterCards issued by either of the banks can now get some cash in all of their ATMs without any commission. The new offer was launched in June, with both banks’ processing centers united into a single technological system, URSA Bank’s press officer reports. URSA Bank’s ATM network comes to 785 machines in the Urals and Siberia. The addition of MDM-Bank’s machines will expand the network to 2,000 units throughout the country, thus making the united network

Serov investigative authorities (operating within the local division of the Russian Federation public prosecution authorities) have recently completed their inquiry into the accident that led to contamination of the River Turya, the spokesperson for the authorities reports. The authorities carried out a detailed investigation of why the River Turiya, Sverdlovsk Region, had turned red. It was detected that the area around UC RUSAL Bogoslovskiy smelter’s slurry pipeline got contaminated because the pipeline had leaked. So, some of the slurry was washed down into the river with melt-water,

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and Russian Railways Public Company signed their Cooperation Agreement for 2009. According to MMK’s PR Department, the agreement aims to create some mutually beneficial cooperation between the parties involved in the field of their transportation, production, financial, and investment policies. Russian Railways Public Company has promised to handle the delivery of all of the plant’s produce in accordance with the latter’s applications. The plant’s Management Company, in its turn, promised to operate the rolling-stock with care and to supply Russian

Ural Federal District’s Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs carried out an investigation that revealed some large-scale theft of Sverdlovenergosbyt’s funds. It was detected that in the course of payment transactions with other companies and while paying off the non-existent electricity supply debts, some 160 million RUR were transferred into various bank accounts and then stolen from the company. As a result, this state-private joint stock company incurred considerable losses. The law-enforcement agencies have already instituted legal proceeding; the criminal lawsuit involves a

On June 13-18, 2009, MegaFon Ural’s Sverdlovsk Region-based customers will be able to register with other operators’ networks. The offer has been launched by the company because of the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRIC summits in Yekaterinburg. During the summit period, MegaFon Ural suggests using manual network search for registration and choosing the tariff schemes.

‘We had to lay a claim with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court against STKS Nedvizhimost and Vodyanoy because these companies are the guarantors of a loan UniCreditBank gave to STKS, and the loan is not being paid off,’ the spokesperson for UniCreditBank explained to an UrBC reporter. Meanwhile, Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is now looking into the claim laid by UniCreditBank against STKS-Nedvizhimost and Vodyanoy; the plaintiff insists that the defendants should pay them 163,205,903.41 RUR and on having the defendants’ mortgaged property arrested. ‘We have shown our willingness to

The number of people applying to with Nizhniy Tagil employment center in search of a job has reached 10,200 people over the five months of 2009. The number of people registered with the center came to 5,300 people on June 1, 2009, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the State Employment Service reports. These figures largely depend on the state of events at Uralvagonzavod, the city’s industrial giant. The plant’s management declared earlier that they were going to send over 20,000 workers on forced leaves. In the meantime, the number of people who’ve been able to find a suitable job came to 4,100

Ural Plant RTI’s annual general meeting held in Yekaterinburg recently resulted in the decision to pass all kinds of share dividends for 2008, mainly because of lack of profit last year. It was also decided that the BOD members and the board of auditors would have to make do without any annual bonuses as well.

The Byelorussian delegation managed to achieve a lot and to make plenty of interesting proposals during their visit to Chelyabinsk Region, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said after meeting the Byelorussian officials. The delegation consisted of the Ministries of Industry and Trade’s representatives and heads of Byelorussia’s leading enterprises. The group of officials was headed by Trade Minister Valentin Chekanov. During their stay, they visited the region’s enterprises in order to build up on the existing ties and to find the new ways of mutually beneficial cooperation.

Moskommerzbank Commercial Bank had to make some changes in its Charter after closing its subsidiarires in Tyumen and Chelyabinsk. In accordance with these changes, the bank now runs branches in nine Russian Federation constituencies, with no subsidiaries whatsoever in Ural Federal District.

‘Vodyanoy hasn’t been faced with any specific claims so far. We did act as a guarantor of STKS at the time, so all the problems might have stemmed from this company’s possible debts,’ Director of Vodyanoy chain store Alexander Mokhov said to an UrBC reporter. Meanwhile, Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is now looking into the claim laid by UniCreditBank against STKS-Nedvizhimost and Vodyanoy, insisting that the defendants should pay them 163,205,903.41 RUR and on having the defendants’ mortgaged property arrested. The preliminary hearing has been scheduled for June 8, 2009. ‘I’m not sure

The threat of 24,000 redundancies will probably make the workers of Nizhniy Tagil-based Uralvagonzavod appeal to Head of Russian Federation Government Vladimir Putin, Trud says in the report on the country’s so-called only enterprise-based towns like Pikalevo, Baikalsk, Zlatoust, and some others. According to the newspaper, 17,500 of the plant’s workers are still being put on forced leaves.

‘Uralstroy-1 application for the start of bankruptcy proceedings was placed with the court by Uraltverdosplav, to whom the former owes about 4.5 million RUR. The company was assigned a trustee in bankruptcy for six months, which is the longest period provided by the law for the proceedings of such sort. However, these six months should be enough for us to finish our latest housing project known as Vysokiy Bereg,’ the General Director of Verdict Debt Collector Agency Eduard Demyanov explained to UrBC. ‘I found out that head of Uralstroy-1 Sergey Sorokin has a villa in Canada (which he was