The net loss of the Russian automobile giant amounted to 19.71 billion RUR in January-September 2009 (the data were compiled in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards). The loss figure was only 834 million RUR in the three quarters of 2008, the company’s report says. AvtoVAZ’s revenues dropped down to 60.8 billion RUR in the three quarters of 2009; this comes to only 50% of revenues collected in the three quarters of 2008. The sales loss came to 5.83 billion RUR against 4.83 billion RUR worth of sales profits a year earlier. The manufacturer explains these losses have to do with the

Finnair has stopped operating its Helsinki-Yekaterinburg and Yekaterinburg-Helsinki flights for the time being. In fact, the airline has recently had to cancel about two hundred domestic and international flights because of a pilot strike. The pilots’ trade union is reported to have clashed with the company’s management. As for the Helsinki-Yekaterinburg flight, the plane was supposed to have landed in Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg at about 6 AM.

Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Market Service ruled that Serov Ferrous Alloys Works should face administrative liability and pay a 700,000-ruble fine. It was declared that the enterprise had not followed the established order of making data publicly available on the securities market, which violates Article 15.19 (part 2) of the Russian Federation Administrative Offense Code.

‘As far as Palma-Tours was concerned, the problem was that some of their travelers had already flown abroad, but the agency still hadn’t transferred the money to their foreign partners. If it hadn’t been for us, these foreign tour operators would have never received the money at all. Palma-Tours was being quite uncivilized,’ President of Sverdlovsk Region Information & Tourism Center Vadim Viner said to UrBC reporter. Palma-Tours used to operate within Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen Regions and Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous District but is now closing down. Its offices are not

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin gave his deputies and ministries a month to draw up a multi-faceted action plan aimed at implementing the President of Russian Federation Dmitriy Medvedev’s Address to the Federal Assembly. The project is to be supervised by First Deputy Governor Andrei Kosilov. Following Petr Sumin’s request, every deputy governor and regional minister will have to come up with a list of specific measures that have to be taken within the region. An accumulated report will be presented to the Governor and the region’s Government in December. According to the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court started the hearing of the claim laid by Sverdlovenergosbyt against Gora Volchikha Ski Resort on November 12, 2009. The electricity supplier wants Gora Volchikha to pay it 897,890 RUR for the electricity consumed in February-May 2009; the sum also covers the interest charged for using the money that was legally Sverdlovenergosbyt’s. No representatives of the defendant turned up in court on the day of the preliminary hearing. As a matter of fact, this isn’t the first time the ski resort has been involved in a lawsuit as a defendant. Just a few days earlier,

Yekaterinburg’s Ordzhonikidzevskiy district court pronounced its sentence upon Dmitriy Egorov, 23, who had been charged with copyright infringement and illegal access to digital information. The young man was sentenced to thirty months in prison, Non-Commercial Partnership of Software Suppliers reports. Dmitriy Egorov was found guilty of large-scale copyright abuse that damaged the copyright holders, namely, Microsoft Corporation, ZAO 1S, Autodesk, and Adobe Systems Incorporated. The man had advertised ‘Computer Service’ through the local media; on September 9, 2009, some law-enforcement

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by Sberbank of Russia against Pnevmostroymashina and PSM-Gidravlika. Sberbank insists that the defendants should pay it 179,663,452.81 RUR on loan agreements; the sum in question is made up of the main debt, the interest, and the fines. The plaintiff also wants to have the two companies’ mortgaged property arrested. The mortgaged assets comprise five buildings and five land allotments belonging to Pnevmostroymashina. Pnevmostroymashina, in its turn, isn’t trying to dispute the main debt or the interest. As for the fines,

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) recently started producing a new hot-rolled rebar with the diameter of 40 mm using its Mill 370. MMK PR Department reports the first batches of the new rebar will be used for the construction of the company’s plate mill shop 11. The shop is expected to house cold-roll Mill 2000 meant for the production of high quality automobile body sheets. This means the enterprise actually manages to use its own resources for the implementation of investment projects, which naturally results in cost savings. ‘Ever since the mill was launched in 2005, we have been

The consumer electronics and white goods chain store expects its sales to drop by 5% to 10% this year; nevertheless, the company still hopes to keep its gross margin within 24.5% to 25%, M.Video’s management announced via a conference call. The company’s sales decreased by 20% in the third quarter of 2009, while the total receipts declined by 5%, or down to 19.1 billion RUR. ‘The Russian white goods market has shrunk by over 30% since the beginning of the year, so we don’t really expect the market to recover noticeably in the last quarter of 2009, even though this quarter is usually marked by

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to consider the claim laid by OOO Kreativ against Marco Polo Trading House. The plaintiff demands that Marco Polo should be declared insolvent, the spokesperson for the court reports. Kreativ deals in dwellings and public buildings design. As for Marco Polo, the company has already closed down its office at 5 Korolenko St. in Yekaterinburg and is no longer able to operate. The first claims against the company were placed with Arbitration Court as early as the spring of 2009. Marco Polo used to deal in wholesale supplies of beer and strong and low alcohol

The joint meeting of Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly’s both chambers will take place on November 17, 2009. The main point on the agenda is whether Alexander Misharin is going to be appointed the region’s new Governor, Chairman of Sverdlovsk Region Duma Nikolai Voronin informed the journalists on Wednesday. President Dmitriy Medvedev had suggested considering the appointment of the current Director of the Russian Federation Government Industry and Infrastructure Department Alexander Misharin a few days earlier. Under the current regional legislation, a candidate must receive a majority

Russia’s Transport Ministry might limit the amount of flights Austrian Airlines are allowed to operate to Russia. According to Kommersant, the carrier was recently sold to Lufthansa, which the Ministry officials believe resulted in the company losing its national status and the right to operate flights to Russia under the intergovernmental agreement. ‘If the airline does not belong to either the Austrian state or the Austrian residents, it cannot operate flights to Russia under the Russian-Austrian air traffic treaty,’ the Ministry representative said to Kommersant. In the meantime, Austrian

The net profit of Ural Plant EMA plunged by 51,166 RUR, or 98.9% in the third quarter of 2009. The company’s profit figures decreased from 51,733 RUR in the second quarter down to 567 RUR in the third quarter. The plant explains the drop in profits has to do with the increased repair expenses and growing heating and electricity bills.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin provided some comments on the President of the Russian Federation Dmitriy Medvedev’s annual Address to the Federal Assembly. ‘This is a carefully thought-through strategic document. Its overarching idea is that Russia needs to upgrade its economy, infrastructure, and socio-political fields. The President is right: we have no time to lose. This is a matter of the country’s global survival. We can only survive in this world by truly moving to a new, high quality standard of living, by creating a post-industrial, innovative economy, and by adopting a new

‘The dealing agreement we had with Avtoland Holding was halted because our company is going through a reorganization process; we might consider prolonging this agreement once the new structure of the business has become clear,’ Jaguar Land Rover Russia’s PR Manager Yulia Malyina said to UrBC. Avtoland Britannia’s agreement with Land Rover and Jaguar was halted on October 15, 2009. ‘Nevertheless, the company can still provide an official dealer’s services to customers whose automobiles were acquired before October 15, 2009. Still, our official dealer in Yekaterinburg is now Krasnolesye car

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by AKB ROSBANK’s Yekaterinburg branch against Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Enterprise. The plaintiff wants to receive 167.5 million RUR the enterprise owes it. The sum in question comprises the promissory notes debt as well as the interest and some fines. The defendant refuses to meet the creditor’s demands: the company claims that the date the disputed notes for December 2008-April 2009 were signed, as well as the General Director’s signatures, can’t be authentic because the GD was actually away on business

Deputy General Director of Koltsovo-Invest Evgeniy Chudnovskiy agreed to become the General Director of Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg. His proposal will be presented to the airport’s shareholders at the extraordinary general meeting on December 4, 2009. The news was announced by the airport via Oblastnaya Gazeta. The main point on this meeting’s agenda used to be the early resignation of GD Kirill Shubin. However, Shubin recently resigned of his own accord and headed the newly founded Sverdlovsk Region State Order Department.

BINBANK’s Board of Directors decided to close down some of its representations in a number of Russian regions, including those in Volgodonsk (Rostov Region) and Magnitogorsk (Chelyabinsk Region). The bank’s President Mikhail Shishkhanov is to set the date for the closing down and to carry out all the procedures related to the closure.

The representatives of Reftinskaya state district power plant were unable to provide any comments on the decision taken by the public prosecution authorities of Sukhoi Log, Sverdlovsk Region. The authorities protested against the town mayor’s ruling concerning the public hearings carried out by the power plant’s management on September 17, 2009. The public prosecution authorities thus voiced their doubts as to whether these hearings (related to the plant’s new dry ash handling project) were actually legitimate. The problem was first brought into the limelight by members of the International