Chairman of the Moscow Court of Arbitration Court Oleg Sviridenko says claims against Mayak have been filed by different companies but for one and the same debt.
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
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Raiders Threaten a Strategic Military Producer
Tax inspectors have declared the Mayak aircraft equipment plant a fly-by-night firm, deleting it from the state register of legal entities. The government says it must have been a “technical error”, but industry experts think it was an attempt to seize the plant which owns a vast stretch of land in Moscow.
Mayak filed a claim with the Moscow Court of Arbitration on March 1 against a Moscow tax inspection which deleted the plant two weeks ago from the register of legal entities as allegedly non-existent. Mayak insists that it has never stopped production. What is more, the plant learnt about the decision of tax officials by chance, which is contrary to law.
The factory is on the list of strategically important enterprises and can be taken out from the list only after a presidential decree. Mayak, where the state holds 60.39 percent, produces equipment for civilian and military aircrafts. The Defense Ministry, Sukhoi and MiG are the plant’s biggest contractors. The company’s turnover reached 80 million rubles in 2006.
“We hope that this is a technical error, and Mayak will be restored in the register,” a Kommersant source in the government said Monday.
Vyacheslav Popkov, acting director general of Mayak, is, however, convinced that this was “an attempt to seize the plant”. The plant has been at court with a company which owns several former workshops of the plant and has been trying to declare Mayak bankrupt three times for debts. Chairman of the Moscow Court of Arbitration Court Oleg Sviridenko said in an interview with Kommersant that claims against Mayak have been filed by different companies but for one and the same debt which was passed on. The court turned down the last claim in November 2006.
The Mayak plant owns a 7 hectare stretch of land in Moscow, not far from the Semenovskaya metro station, estimated to be worth up to $50 million. Industry experts do not rule out that the tax scandal was an attempt of business raiding.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 06, 2007
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