The Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region has agreed to review the case of URA.RU LLC's bankruptcy, a legal entity linked to the Ural news agency URA.RU.
The amount owed by the company exceeds 255 million rubles, as stated in the case file. In 2016, Aksana Panova, the agency's founder, attempted to legally compel URA.RU to provide her with the LLC's financial documents due to its multimillion-dollar debts. Now the legal entity faces not only bankruptcy, but also a potential trial with the Federal Tax Service.
At the end of last year, LLC URA.RU filed for bankruptcy with the arbitration. The debt mentioned in the documents exceeds 255.5 million rubles. The creditors include Energoginn Energy Supply Company LLC (100 percent owned by SUENKO JSC, controlled by STS Corporation LLC Artyom Bikov and Alexei Bobrov), Business House on Archiereiskaya (controlled by Alexei Bobrov’s structures) and Valery Korolev.
Aksana Panova was taken aback by the news of the legal entity's bankruptcy and informed Oktagon.Ural that she couldn't comment. The company's general director, Elena Kuimova, also refused to give a statement.
Aksana Panova established the news agency URA.RU in 2006. In December 2011, 51 percent of URA.RU LLC's shares were purchased from her by the Austrian BF TEN Holding GmbH, connected to Bikov and Bobrov.
In 2012, amid a conflict with the co-founders, Panova established the online newspaper Znak.com.
In the summer of 2013, the conflict continued: Panova offered to sell her share to BF TEN Holding GmbH for 60 million rubles, but the co-owner of the agency was given the priority to buy the share at face value – 4.9 thousand rubles. The company's authorized capital was 10 thousand rubles, and according to the company's charter, the co-owner could purchase the share at its nominal value. BF TEN Holding GmbH took the case to arbitration, demanding recognition of the sale contract at this price, but no instance supported the claim. In 2014, the Supreme Court finally rejected the Austrian company's claim, thereby allowing Panova to keep her share.
In 2015, the news agency sought to recover 27.6 million rubles in damages from Aksana Panova for her actions as chief editor.
According to the plaintiff, the media manager withdrew funds from the media's accounts and evaded taxes. It was revealed in 2016 that she had repaid the debt.
In June 2016, due to the closure of BF TEN Holding GmbH, 51 percent of the shares were transferred to the company's successor, ESE Group of Companies LLC, while the rest of the shares remained with Panova.
historical debts
Amid concerns about losing control of the business, Bikov and Bobrov's structures began taking over the news agency's operations. In 2014, the Siberian-Ural Media Company LLC (SUMK) was founded, with URA.RU Mikhail Vyugin and Elena Kuimova as the founders. The firm became the repository of the news agency's finances, and its net profit for 2015 amounted to 53.3 million rubles.
At the end of 2016 Panova interested URA.RU LLC had financial troubles, losing 206 million rubles.
Based on court records, around 220 million rubles were required from URA.RU LLC in 2016 due to creditor claims, with Energoginn Energy Retail Company LLC being one of them. The court case had to be handled again. Panova asked for written materials about the company's 2016 financial activities, specifically about the loans taken by URA.RU, their usage, and agreements for the Ura.ru domain name.
Only two out of the 15 requests were partly fulfilled. The court demanded information about one loan and the reasons for changing the Ura.ru domain administrator in 2016. It was found that the domain was temporarily given to SUMK.
The media now uses the Ura.news domain, which was registered in March 2016. The owner's information is hidden, but in a 2018 lawsuit, the Siberian-Ural Media Company was identified as the proper defendant demanding the removal of materials from the Ura.news website. Now it is listed as the founder of URA.RU agency.
According to 2021 court documents on a different lawsuit, URA.RU LLC does not own the domain and is not a media outlet or its founder. According to Kartoteka.ru, the company's revenue information has been unavailable since 2017. There were revenues of 8.5 million, 8.6 million, 8.4 million, and 13.8 million rubles from 2017 to 2020.
New owners
Another structure, Moscow Media Company LLC, was registered to URA.RU in September 2019, with Nikolai Amelkov as its director and sole beneficiary. No other companies are registered to it.
With the arrival of the Moscow structure, commercial contracts concluded with SUMK were transferred to it. New contracts were also created for the Moscow Media Company, and content was prepared and posted on the Ura.news website.
So, the Moscow structure was making money while the Ural one was facing losses.
According to Kartoteka.ru, in 2019, SUMK had a net loss of 59.3 million rubles with a revenue of 109.6 million. Financial information for the Moscow media company was not publicly available.
Ekaterina Kotkina has stepped down as SUMK CEO, who, as per Oktagon.Ural, was a key figure in this setup and an associate of Bikov and Bobrov. The Moscow media company is being liquidated, with the decision made at the end of 2021. The news agency is also under tax inspection, and current and former employees of the editorial office have been invited for discussions at the Federal Tax Service for several months last year.
