ALTIMO ASKS COURT TO UNFREEZE ARRESTED VIMPELCOM STOCK

RIA Novosti
16:20 | 28/ 10/ 2008

MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) – Altimo, which holds 44% of voting
stock in Russia’s second largest mobile operator, VimpelCom, has filed
a petition with an Omsk arbitration court asking it to unfreeze its
arrested shares.

"Altimo filed today a petition to unfreeze the VimpelCom shares it
owns," the company said on Tuesday in a statement.

On Monday, the Omsk arbitration appeals court in southwestern Siberia
arrested VimpelCom shares owned by Altimo and Telenor on a lawsuit
from a VimpelCom minority shareholder, the Farimex company.

VimpelCom’s main shareholders are Altimo, the telecoms arm of
Russia’s Alfa Group, and Norway’s Telenor. The latter owns 29.9%
of voting shares.

Telenor East Invest and Altimo are the defendants in the Farimex suit.

Farimex accuses the main VimpelCom shareholders of hindering
VimpelCom’s entry into Ukraine’s cellular communications
market. Farimex demanded that they pay $3.8 billion to the operator.

On August 16, a West Siberian arbitration court granted a Farimex
suit to exact $2.824 billion from Telenor and ordered the Norwegian
company to pay $16,850 in court expenses.

In September, Telenor and VimpelCom board members affiliated with
the Norwegian company filed appeals to the Omsk court.

VimpelCom, which operates under the Beeline brand, provides services
in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Armenia
and Georgia.