The preliminary court hearings on the case relating to the so-called economic wing of Uralmash criminal conspiracy will start at 10:00 AM on June 4, 2012, Sverdlovsk Region Court told UrBC. ‘The hearings involve people like Tkachuk, Mishenin, Kolyasnikov, Temlyakova, Rushitskaya, Zhuravleva, and others,’ the court told UrBC. ‘The accused asked for the case to be heard by a board of jurors. Under the law, the preliminary hearings are held in camera; the date on which the trial starts is to be announced,’ the court explained.

Starting June 12, Ural Airlines is planning to launch the new flight from Yekaterinburg to Gelendzhik, the company says. The flight will be operated through August 13, every Monday, using the Airbus family planes. Now Ural Airlines is one of Russia’s top ten air carriers that serviced over 2.5m passengers last year. Its flights network covers over 120 destinations; most of the aircraft in the company’s fleet of vehicles are Airbus planes. At the moment, the airline is using 24 planes (15 A 320 and 9 A 321 ones).

RBC daily reports Facebook is planning to launch a new payment service as well as a person-to-person payments system in Russia. According to some sources that are privy to the course of negotiations, these are Bank24.ru and Russian Standard Bank that can be chosen as the social network’s Russian partners. Facebook, which recently went through with an IPO, keeps setting up new services. A source privy to the course of negotiations says the social network is planning to introduce its own money order system and a new one-click checkout service in Russia. The new money order system will make it

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by E.S. Yalamov Mechano-Optical Plant against Ural Federal University regarding goodwill protection. The plant representatives claim that the defendant reported some inaccurate and goodwill-impairing data in a letter to Deputy Head of Russian Government Dmitri Rogozin dated February 7, 2012. E.S. Yalamov Mechano-Optical Plant applied for this letter to be produced by the defendant, since the plaintiff has no copy of this letter, and the plaintiff’s demand to provide them with a copy has been ignored. As the court needs to

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court started looking into the claim laid by Microsoft Corporation against MSK Insurance Group regarding a compensation for copyright abuse (997.26m RUR). The issue at hand is the illegal use of software, Windows OS, and Office. The court sustained the plaintiff’s petition and thought it necessary to demand the original documentation relating to the administrative offense case 5-8/2011 from Oktyabrsky District Court of Yekaterinburg. The papers in question are an order dated November 18, 2010 regarding an examination of premises, buildings, land allotments, and

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court looked into the application placed by Uralprivatbank and decided to declare the bank one of the creditors of a sole trader Igor Dulebintz on a third-priority basis. The bank’s claim comes to 12.43m RUR. In October 2011, an observation procedure was commenced involving the founder of Fond Mira Igor Dulebintz. In February 2012, the businessman had to undergo bankruptcy proceedings. According to the files of the case, Sverdlovsk Region Federal Court in Sysert District ruled in May 2011 that Dulebintz should pay Uralprivatbank 12.43m RUR (a credit line debt). A

The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India to Russia Ajay Malhotra is going to visit Sverdlovsk Region soon, the region’s Deputy Minister for International & Foreign Economic Relations Vladimir Solovarov reports. ‘India is Russia’s strategic partner. Cooperating with this country opens a way to obtaining advanced technologies, as the world’s major companies have been operating in India for a long time already. Also, India is a very receptive market for our enterprises’ produce. One should also bear in mind that our partnership with India is a long-time one, dating back to

The auction aimed at selling a 100% stake in the state-run insurance company Yugoria has been put off till October 1, 2012, Yugoria’s press service reports. The decision was made in the course of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region Yugra Government’s meeting dedicated to the privatization of the state-owned property in the region. For one, the attendees considered the way the Governor’s request for monitoring the course of privatization and the insurance market in the course of Yugoria’s privatization was complied with. In the end, it was decided to postpone the auction until October 1, 2012.

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ) and Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) held a coordination meeting dedicated to the two companies’ strategic cooperation. The meeting was attended by representatives of ChTPZ and MMK’s technical and R&D experts as well as the heads of ChTPZ daughter enterprise ChTPZ Engineering, ChTPZ’s press officer reports. The meeting participants looked into and discussed the ways of protecting their intellectual property that had been created in the course of the two enterprises’ cooperation, agreed on the members of the joint work team, and spoke about

Deputy Governor of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region Yugra Vera Dyudina left her office as BOD Chair of Khanty-Mansiysky Bank. The Board of Directors is now chaired by Alexander Murychev, Executive Vice President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Employers and Chairman of the Association of Regional Russian Banks’ Board.

Seppala and Jack&Jones will no longer be operating in MEGA Shopping Center in Yekaterinburg. ‘All the basic agreements had been signed for a five-year term, so some of them, including the ones signed with Seppala and Jack&Jones, were not renewed, so the said stores will close down. River Island and Imaginarium will take their place before the end of the year (the exact date has not been set yet). Some of the stores in the shopping center are currently closed for reconstruction,’ the mall’s PR Department reports. At the same time, Adidas Originals, Windsor Knot, and MTS launched their

Starting June 1, 2012, In Malyshev St branch of Nomos Bank’s Yekaterinburg division will stop operating due to a newly adopted development strategy. The office is located at 85 Malyshev St in Yekaterinburg. An outlet of Nomos Bank’s daughter company Khanty-Mansiysky Bank will be opened there instead, Nomos-Bank’s press service reports.

Chairman of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s Board of Directors Evgeny Shkolov is leaving office six months after he was appointed. The Russian Federation President’s press service reports Shkolov was appointed the President’s Assistant. The 56-year-old Shkolov assumed office at Uralvagonzavod in November 2011.

Ural Airlines came up with a performance report for April 2012. The company flew 254,337 passengers last month, which was 61% more than in April 2011. All in all, 838,122 people have flown with the air carrier since the beginning of the year. In April 2012, Ural Airlines operated 2,044 flights, including 793 international flights, 782 domestic flights, and 469 flights to destinations in CIS member states. The actual passenger turnover came to 701,437 passenger-kilometers in April 2012, which was a 71% improvement on a year earlier. All in all, Ural Airlines have operated 7,189 flights since

Rosnedra declared UMMC’s Mednogorsky Copper & Sulphur Works the winner in the tender for the development of Yelanskoye copper- and nickel-containing ore deposit in Voronezh Region. Now Norilsk Nickel, which took part in the tender as well, decided the state agency’s decision had not been impartial. Norilsk Nickel also refused to join the project for the development of another deposit, Yelkinskoye. As a result, this deposit was handed over to UMMC, too. The nationally significant subsoil resources of Yelanskoye and Yelkinskoye deposits are located in Voronezh Region’s Novokhopersky

Seven Bank Koltso Urala’s cardholders won in Visa International’s special offer run between March 1 and April 30, 2012 and were offered a trip to the opening of the Olympics 2012 in London. The offer covered a number of other valuable prizes, as well as trips to the opening of the 30th Olympics, for Visa cardholders, the bank reports. The prize-drawing took place on May 16. The winners are seven of the bank’s customers living in Yekaterinburg, Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Kemerovo, and Mednogorsk. Two more customers won large 3D Panasonic TV sets. 50 such TV sets were given out as prizes altogether,

Visa and Metcombank’s cooperation resulted in a new offer for the bank’s customers: a mobile app called Visa Premium that was developed within Visa Privilege World program, the bank reports. The application is available for all the holders of Visa Gold, Platinum, and Infinite cards and allows them always to be in the know of all the special offers and other treats. “This Visa Premium mobile app lets our customers keep constant track of all the latest news in the Visa world. Having a special offers guide always by your side, that is, in your phone, is extremely handy,’ says Metcombank Chairman

Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company (UMMC) is planning to hand the shares of A.K. Serov Metallurgical Plant’s shares over to Gazprombank so that they can serve as a security. This issue will be considered at UMMC BOD meeting today. The meeting will also be dedicated to estimating the market value of the plant’s shares.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by MDM Bank against Uralchermetavto and Avtoland Sever. The plaintiff wants to be paid 206.47m RUR it is owed. The bank insists on the two defendants paying it the sum in question, as these companies are guarantors for a number of loan agreements, interest payments, and fees. Now ZAO AO Avto Land and OOO Ufa Avto-Land appealed to court asking to bring them into the proceedings as non-party interveners. The court accepted their petitions, and the hearing was postponed till June 4, 2012.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court set the hearing of OOO Riada vs. OOO Barkas for June 8, 2012. The plaintiff placed a claim with the court, demanding that Barkas provide the company with the documentation necessary to establish ownership rights over certain premises in accordance with the existing contract, namely, a proof of full payment for the premises (which serve as the object of investment under an agreement dated February 19, 2008), a proof of no financial claims over the premises, and the transfer act. The premises in question are located on the 12th floor of The Count Orloff