Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court rejected AKB Rosbank’s demand to overrule the verdict returned by Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) in Oktyabrsky and Kirovsky Districts of Yekaterinburg that sentenced the bank to a 10,000-ruble fine. Following a complaint from a consumer named I. Cherepanova, Rospotrebnadzor’s division instituted administrative proceedings and carried out an investigation. The inquiry revealed that after AKB Rosbank’s merger with Bank Sociйtй Gйnйrale Vostok, on June 15, 2012, all the rights and obligations relating to a

EVRAZ NTMK set up a special committee to look up into a worker’s injury. A Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works (NTMK) electrician was found on the railways of NPTs Razvitiye with a broken hip and shin on May 18. It was actually the worker’s day off. The ambulance provided some first aid to the victim and took him to Municipal Clinic 4. It was reported earlier that a nineteen-year-old employee’s legs were cut off when he was trying to crawl under the railway carriages at NTMK shop.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) intends to direct 900m RUR to environmental projects this year, MMK reports. The company adopted an environmental program for 2012 in order to comply with the Russian Federation’s legislative requirements in the field of environmental protection and with the international standard ISO 14001:2004. The program is also targeted at reducing MMK’s environmental impact and enhancing the environmental friendliness of the company’s production process. MMK’s environmental program for this year covers all of the company’s divisions. Among the most important

As Yekaterinburg competes for the right to host EXPO 2020, the site for coordinating the global fair should be found before the end of May, acting Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev said at a meeting dedicated to the city’s EXPO 2020 application campaign. According to head of Yekaterinburg Architecture, City Planning, and Land Management Administration Mikhail Vyatkin, four locations have been considered as the possible sites: Novokoltsovsky, Ural Federal University, Severno-Shartashsky, and VIZ Pravoberezhny. The winning location must meet quite a few criteria: it should fit

Rimera Group’s SOT successfully underwent the annual audit of its quality management system, which was tested for compliance with the ST RK ISO 9001-2009 standards. The inspectors from QS Azia Sertik spent a few days inspecting all of the Chelyabinsk-based plant’s divisions and SOT’s Magnitogorsk subsidiary and found no violations. ST RK ISO 9001-2009 is the state standard of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and SOT has been certified for compliance with the standard since 2005. The inspection and audit of the certified quality management system is an obligatory procedure for companies willing to

METCOMBANK and Visa are launching a special offer dubbed Golden Time with Visa Gold. Golden Time is a week of treats Visa offers the winners. Every day, the winning customers receive something nice, and on weekends, they can enjoy their stay at one of Rixos Hotels in Turkey. Throughout this Golden Time offer (May 20 to July 20, 2012) every Visa Gold cardholder can win the numerous prizes that vary according to the day of the week. For one, a personal coach workout is drawn every Monday, a restaurant dinner can be won on Wednesdays, and a stay in a hotel in Turkey is available at weekends. To

E.S. Yalamov Ural Mechano-Optical Plant is taking legal action against Ural Federal University. The claim has to do with goodwill protection and was submitted to Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court. ‘Deputy Head of Russian Federation Government Dmitri Rogozin received a letter from Ural Federal University with inaccurate information that impairs our plant’s goodwill. This information did harm to the plant, and we incurred certain losses. We tried complaining to the university and asked them to take this back, but the UFU refused to cooperate. This is why we decided to take legal action,’ the

Bank Reserve decided to pass the dividend for 2011. The decision was made at the bank’s annual general meeting. The bank’s net profit amounted to 8.16m RUR. Alexander Ivanov was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors at the board meeting on the same day.

The daughter and the son of Russia’s State Duma Deputy Valery Yazev Svetlana and Andrei Yazev were re-elected onto Yuveliry Urala’s Board of Directors. This decision was made in the course of the stockholder’s meeting. It was also decided to pass the dividends for the year 2011.

The builders working on the international exhibition center Yekaterinburg EXPO are going to hold a picket today and to insist on getting paid, a representative of the initiative group and the director of one of the developing companies Alexei Sadovsky told UrBC. The developers that were involved in the construction of the exhibition center have been unable to get the money for their work from the region’s authorities for a year now. The picket will start in Oktyabrskaya Square next to the Government Building at 3:00 PM. ‘We are going to remind the public of our problem. We’ll enter the square

Sverdlovsk Region Court pronounced the verdict of guilty upon Alexander Gniteyev; the man was found guilty of state treason through espionage (Article 275 of Russia’s Criminal Code). Gniteyev was sentenced to eight years in a strict-regime penitentiary establishment, a 100,000-RUR fine, and one year of supervised release when he cannot change his place of residence or leave the town where he resides without the permission of an authorized state body; he’ll also have to visit the said state body two times a month. This judgment can be appealed from under cassational procedure. R30 3M30 Bulava

The lead managers of Facebook’s IPO are going to consider the bids for purchasing a stake in the world’s largest social network. BCS and Finam, who processed the bids, told Kommersant that the Ural investors had submitted several scores of them. For one, eighteen applications have been submitted by 25 people at BrokerCreditService’s Yekaterinburg office. ‘Some of our customers consolidated their funds into one bid. The bids come to $70,000 on average, but we have some rather large-scale investors as well, with bids amounting to $500,000 and more,’ says the director of BCS Yekaterinburg branch

The iPad version of HAPPY Fashion Culture Magazine Russia had to be halted due to lack of advertising accounts and the product’s high cost. ‘This product is expensive to make and the magazine’s audience is quite unevenly distributed, so it’s hard to find accounts, and there are not too many iPad users in Yekaterinburg, after all. This is why we are questioning the future of this project and have to stop working on it because of all the difficulties,’ the magazine’s editors told UrBC. HAPPY Fashion Culture Magazine Russia for iPads was launched in October 2010 and iPad owners could then

The fact that the curator of the international exhibition Innoprom Mikhail Maksimov has left Sverdlovsk Region Government is not going to affect the exhibition performance in any way whatsoever, President of Formica Management Company (the exhibition coordinator) Maxim Zverkov told UrBC. Now Sverdlovsk Region’s Investment & Development Minister Mikhail Maksimov left the region: he was appointed First Deputy Head of Mayor of Moscow Administration & Government. ‘This is not the first year the exhibition has been held. This is why we have very few difficult issues to work with. The last

The project on world fair EXPO 2020 in Yekaterinburg is estimated to require about $10bn, RIA Novosti quotes Director of EXPO 2020 Application Committee Eric Bugulov as saying. ’50% is expected to be provided by the state, while the remaining half is to be contributed by businesses,’ Bugulov said at the business forum The Future of The City. He explained most of the money ($7bn) would be directed to the creation of the infrastructure in Yekaterinburg: transport, parking lots, the underground, and other facilities. The decision on where to hold the world fair will be voted for at the BIE

The net profit of X5 Retail Group, Russia’s largest retail company (in terms of sales), went down by 31.6% in January-March 2012 compared with a year earlier. The figures were calculated in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards and came to $66.6m, the company reports. The retailer made $96.9m RUR in terms of net profit in the first three months of 2011. The Group runs Perekrestok and Carousel supermarkets in Yekaterinburg.

Adobe Systems announced the results of its activity in the field of copyright protection in Sverdlovsk Region. In 2011, thirty-two criminal suits relating to the use of unlicensed Adobe products were supported by the company in Sverdlovsk Region altogether, which exceeded the figures for 2010 (20 suits) by a third. In Ural Federal District on the whole, 58 suits were instituted last year, which came to 5% of all the criminal proceedings instituted in Russia in 2011. All in all, Adobe Systems supported 1,073 criminal lawsuits, which was over 50% more than in 2010 (681 suits). The majority of

One cannot safely swim or fish in the pond next to the Ramada Hotel in Koltsovsky Tract, Chair of Yekaterinburg Council Urban Development Committee Tamara Blagodatkova warns. However, the hotel still positions the pond as its competitive advantage and hosts wakeboard and water skiing competitions there. ‘A nearly two-hectare waste landfill is located in the nearby forest to the left of the pond. In the winter, the communal housing and utilities services of Oktyabrsky District relocate the snow from the city streets there. There is no question of this snow being clean: it contains pieces of

Ural Chemical Machine-Building Plant (Uralkhimmash) made 244.27m RUR worth of net loss (calculated in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards) in January-March 2012, which was 3.3 times more than in the first quarter of 2011, the company’s quarterly report states. At the same time, the company’s revenues rose by 3.6 times and came to 1.16bn RUR, Interfax-Ural reports.

Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin appointed a new First Deputy Head of Mayor of Moscow Administration & Government, Interfax was informed by a source in the city council. According to this informant, the contract with Mikhail Maksimov will be valid throughout Sobyanin’s entire term as Mayor. Former First Deputy Head of Mayor of Moscow Administration & Government Maxim Reshetnikov was appointed Head of Moscow’s Economic Policies & Development Department earlier, the agency says.