The General Director off Russian operator ZAO Smarts has written a letter to the Russian Minister of Justice, accusing court bailiff’s services of corruptly conspiring with “raiders” who are trying to seize ZAO Smarts shares.
General manager Gennady Kirushin, writing to Justice Minister Chayka said:
Since the middle of 2005 various courts in Russia have been receiving claims the aim of which was interlocutory injunction by way of ZAO SMARTS shares seizure. The applicant party was interested not in sustaining the claim, but only in interlocutory injunction.
Kirushin described the claims as “absurd and unlawful,” but said that court bailiffs only acted efficiently when carrying out filings on behalf of the seizure process. Kirushin said documents supporting Zao’s case would get lost, take two months to be delivered, or get stuck in court registeries.
Kirishin continues:
As a result ZAO SMARTS shares are seized on an on-going basis. Let us consider, for example, the first case against SMARTS initiated by raiders in court of Promyshlennyi district of the city of Stavropol. The judgement was recalled eight months ago, while the shares are seized up till now. The situation is amazing.
ZAO Smarts argues that the case has damaged its reputation and resulted in complications in proceedings with business partners.
Kirishin’s latter followed a speech by the Justice Minister in which he admitted the problem of court bailiff corruption in Russia.
Smarts is also facing an investigation that it has been operating outwith the terms of its license. The Federal Service for Communications Oversight said earlier that SMARTS had been systematically violating license requirements. The company’s Deputy General Director Andrei Girev told Russian news agency Prime-Tass that operating electronic radio equipment without permission, was widespread in Russia, as it may take up to 24 months after an application is filed for mobile operators to actually get permission to start operating the equipment. If such violations are found, they are usually considered to be administrative violations and the operator has to pay a fine, Girev said.
SMARTS group said first-quarter revenues were up 9.4% year-on-year to USD46.1 million, with almost half the sales coming from the group’s mobile operations. The firm, which had full-year 2005 revenues of $189 million, has 3.5 million subscribers across 16 Russian regions and expects to have reached the four million-mark by the end of the year.