Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service keeps preparing for UralTransBank and Severnaya Kazna’s trials: the two banks are charged with violating the antimonopoly law. The Service is now busy collecting all the papers needed for the case; the first court hearing has been scheduled for November 12, 2007.

The Service first took legal action against two Yekaterinburg-based banks in October 2007. UralTransBank and Severnaya Kazna were suspected of limiting competition through signing certain agreements with a number of local insurers and were therefore accused of violating Article 11 of the Federal Competition Protection Act.