Control established by the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) over Baltiysky Zavod belonging to Sergei Pugachev’s entities, is in fact, only on paper.

 In the framework of the case concerning foreclosure of Baltiysky Zavod shares, the Bank of Russia filed a petition to court to replace the head of the plant and to permit the plant to conduct a transaction without the approval of the board of directors. The bank explained its appeal to court claiming the current situation to be an obstacle to proper functioning of the plant. The relevant authorities are unable to manage the plant, since certain kind of transactions lie within the exclusive competence of the board of directors, and it is not possible to hold a meeting to make a decision.

 This means that no effective control has been established over Baltiysky Zavod after its shares were transferred to USC. Although already about a month ago the authorities reported a change of management. At that time deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak announced that Andrei Fomichev, who had been the head of Baltiysky Zavod since October 2008, resigned as CEO, handing his powers by proxy over to Valery Venkov, acting CEO from USC.

 According to the Russian Mafia web-site (rumafia.com), next week the plant was promised a contract worth 3 billion rubles to construct supply vessel for Gazflot.