At 9 PM on July 12, 2006, the public prosecution authorities of Verkh-Isetskiy District of Yekaterinburg commenced a criminal lawsuit concerning the alleged violation of sanitary-and-hygienic regulations that led to food poisoning of over 150 builders from IKEA construction site, reports the spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor of Sverdlovsk Region.

The preliminary investigation shed some light on the events of July 12: at about 6 PM, over 90 Turkish and Tajik citizens with symptoms of food poisoning were brought into municipal clinic # 40 directly from the construction site. It turned out that over 1,500 people work on the site daily and eat in a pavilion where the victuals are brought by the employees of two companies IKEA has contracts with. The experts from the public prosecutor’s office have already taken samples of food and swabs of the surfaces of thermoses the food was transported in; they have also taken swabs of cooking surfaces; all of these are to be examined and tested now.

Following the order of the public prosecutor, Rospotrebnadzor, a consumer goods watchdog, made the company close down and seal up all the food processing units as well as the van used for the delivery of food.

At the moment, the public prosecution authorities are busy with the preliminary inquiry of this criminal case.