‘UralTransBank placed its comments on the independent examination conducted by FBK Company Ltd. at the request of ROSNO, the insurance company, with the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency and the Association of Regional Russian Banks,’ the bank’s Deputy Chairman Andrei Spitsin said to UrBC representative.

Many experts believe that this can be seen as the retaliation for the subjective (as UralTransBank thinks) report of the independent examination committee organized by the insurer. After the meeting of the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency executives devoted to the clash between ROSNO and UralTransBank regarding credit insurance, the agency strongly recommended that the bank allow the insurer to conduct an independent examination of the accrued loss. According to the official data provided by ROSNO, the independent expert said that the bank had not provided enough papers to calculate the loss and make the insurer pay a justified compensation.

‘UralTransBank provided some evidence of producing the sufficient number of documents’, the bank’s press officer says.

The dispute originally started with both parties accusing each other of failing to meet the general agreement requirements regarding credit risk insurance related to consumer loans. UralTransBank claimed that the insurer had been paying no bad debt compensation since April 2006. In the meantime, ROSNO accused the bank of not producing enough papers needed to identify and confirm these debts as insured events. The conflict came to be regarded as scandalous after both companies engaged in spreading negative rumors about each other. This led to mass media and extraneous entities becoming massively involved in the clash.

‘I should also say that, following the complaint of UralTransBank, the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency issued an order (NP –1293/ 03-01-290) on November 13, 2006 concerning ROSNO’s compensation payment evasion,’ Mr Spitsin said.

Russian analysts say this kind of conduct does excessive damage to the reputation of both the two parties and Russia’s entire financial market.