The association’s conflict with the FCSM is considered settled Yesterday, the results of the absentee voting of members of the Professional Association of Registrars, Transfer Agents and Depositories (PARTAD) for the election of a new board of directors were finally summed up. The “trade union” of stock market infrastructure workers has finally acquired a governing body after a protracted confrontation between its previous leadership and the Federal Securities Commission.

The Moscow City Court rejected the complaint of the National Association of Professional Stock Market Participants (NAUFOR) against the decision of December 7, 2000, prohibiting changes to the association’s constituent documents until the dispute over the legitimacy of its board of directors was resolved.

Yesterday, the State Duma legitimized the rules for placing reserves of non-state pension funds by approving an addition to Article 20 of the law on non-state pension funds. This addition is purely technical, because the rules that NPFs must adhere to when placing pension reserves were approved by government decree back in December 1999 and have been in full force since June last year.

Cancer experts and tobacco companies are fighting for the soul of smokers In 2001, competition in the Russian tobacco market will intensify, since the market is saturated, production is growing, and there are no more people willing to indulge in this vice.

US monetary authorities tighten oversight of money laundering The other day, the US Federal Reserve System (FRS) released a document with the terrifying title “Guidelines for Strengthening Control over Transactions That May Be Related to Corrupt Proceeds of Foreign Officials.” A working group of representatives of the Ministry of Finance, the State Department, the Federal Reserve and other supervisory authorities worked on its creation. Under the new rules, U.S.

The state is going to issue ADRs for 6% of LUKOIL shares in May At the very end of last year, the Russian Federal Property Fund (RFFI) and the Ministry of Property Relations (Ministry) announced the state’s intention to create a “Project Privatization Company” (“Komprivatization”) to sell 50 million shares of the oil company LUKOIL on international stock markets.

Black Sea tours are already sold out The times are returning when “No vacancies!” signs were constantly hanging on the doors of sanatoriums, boarding houses and hotels on the Black Sea coast. At the all-Russian fair “Resorts and Tourism 2001” that just ended in Sochi, it turned out that the best health resorts on the coast of the Black and Azov Seas, as well as the Caucasian Mineral Waters, sold out their rooms for the summer in the fall.

Yesterday the STB Card company officially announced the launch of a new product - a plastic bearer card STB/Cashline. Its main advantage is that its owner, who has opened a card account in one of the banks participating in the STB system, can, at his discretion, transfer the card to any other person.

OPEC countries are reducing oil production, and Russia is increasing OPEC will reduce oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day from February 1 this year. This decision was made at a meeting in Vienna of the oil ministers of the member countries of this organization. Before the meeting, there was disagreement about the extent of the decline in exports. Qatar and Indonesia spoke in favor of reducing quotas by 2 million barrels per day, while Saudi Arabia advocated for 1.5 million.

The Aerospace Equipment Corporation announced yesterday that the Russian government approved the draft Russian-Belarusian agreement on the creation of the eponymous interstate financial and industrial group (IFIG) Aerospace Equipment and instructed Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov to sign this document on the Russian side. The core of the MFIG is the St. Petersburg OJSC United Aircraft Instrument-Making Consortium, which owns 49% of the OJSC Aerospace Equipment Corporation.

Officials saved them from ruining the New Year holidays The State Civil Aviation Service (SCSA) yesterday excommunicated the Rusavia airline from the air transport business. The company was punished for disrupting New Year's charter programs.

The Russian Ministry of Finance retained the functions of the payment agent for servicing state savings loan bonds (OGSZ) for Sberbank of the Russian Federation. This is stated in the ministry’s statement following the results of the competition held on January 15, 2001.

Machine-building factories abandon subsistence farming The United Machine-Building Plants (OMZ) holding will be radically reconstructed. All non-core divisions will be separated from the OMZ structure and sold on the free market. At a press conference held yesterday at the Interfax agency, OMZ General Director Kakha Bendukidze explained that previously vertical integration of production in certain industries was effective.

The offshore received a Russian fishing base The Arbitration Court of the Primorsky Territory yesterday removed Sergei Gusakov from his post as the bankruptcy manager of Vladivostok Base of Trawling and Refrigerated Fleet OJSC (VBTRF). Igor Zhurenkov was appointed as the new manager, whose candidacy was proposed by the company's largest creditor, Falkland Investments Ltd.

Vladivostok Dalrybbank, which found itself on the verge of collapse after a default in 1998 and came under the management of ARCO, began repaying its obligations to private depositors. More than 18 thousand people who entrusted their money to what was once the largest financial institution in the region will now be able to get it back. True, not right away.