General director of Russian Media Group Sergey Kozhevnikov assumes that other shareholders ordered the police investigation of his company, although he finds it hard to believe that they would.
Photo: Valery Levitin
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Police Make the News on Russian Radio
// Its advertising department is suspected of tax evasion
The Moscow police’s tax unit conducted a search of the offices of ZAO Russian Media Group, which manages a group of radio stations, including the popular station Russian Radio. One of the group’s radio stations, Russian News Service, was forced off the air by the police action. According to unofficial information, the search was conducted as part of a tax evasion investigation of Mikhail Kuleshov, general director of the Grammofon advertising agency, another part of the Russian Media Group. Police investigators first audited Grammofon about a month ago. The search began at the Russian Media Group’s offices at 3rd Khoroshevskaya St. in Moscow at about 10:00 a.m. It involved about 20 plainclothes investigators.
Russian Media Group is one of the country’s largest radio holdings. Its manages Russian Radio, Russian News Service, Radio Monte Carlo, DFM, Hit FM, Maximum and Dobrye Pesny. It also owns Ru.tv musical television channel, the Grammofon and Roskontsentrom advertising agencies and Pingvin magazine. As of April of this year, 22 percent of the group belonged to its general director Sergey Kozhevnikov. The remaining 78 percent was owned by LUKOIL executives through the Management Center, Capital Investments and Mediainvest companies. It declared receipts of over $62 million in 2007, with $17 million in net profit.
The search was led by Sr. Lieut. Anton Egorov of the tax division of the Northern District Department of Internal Affairs (police – Russian abbreviation UVD), who presented Russian Media Group lawyers with a warrant. Police broke down an inside glass door when they were unwilling to wait to have it unlocked. There were no other incidents during the search. Employees were asked to wait in the hallways as the offices were searched. They were not allowed to use their cellular phones. The search took the longest in the accounting department of the Grammofon agency. The agency has a staff of about 50. They were released after being interviewed and said the interviews consisted only of questions about advertising – how ads are produced, sold, bought and so on. Kozhevnikov was allowed to enter and leave the building at will, but employees whose offices were being searched were required to stay on the premises, some until late evening, after confiscated computers and documents were taken away by the police. Kuleshov was not at work at the time of the search. He told Kommersant that he left the office early in the morning for a business meeting and found out about the search only in the afternoon.
When investigators began to examine the server for the Russian News Service, at 12:15, its broadcast was interrupted. The Russian News Service provides news once an hour for all of the Russian Media Group’s stations and for Ru.tv. Kozhevnikov stated that he thought the search was connected with a dispute among shareholders. He noted that the police were more disruptive than was necessary simply to complete their search. Last autumn, Sergey Arkhipov, who was president of Russian Media Group at the time and is now deputy general director of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Co., sold his 19-percent share in the company to Kozhevnikov and Management Center. In March of last year, Kursk Region senator Vitaly Bogdanov sold his 39-percent share in the group to a subsidiary of Management Center. The former shareholders deny any connection to the search.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 05, 2008
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