Bitel

History

At the end of 2005 MTS Finance for $150 million purchased at Nomihold Securities Inc company. 51% of stocks of Tarino Limited company which owned at that time 100% of the Kyrgyz operator Bitel through the child structures. However on December 14, 2005 according to the decision of the Sverdlovsk district court of the city of Bishkek the property rights to Bitel were acquired by Rezervspetsmet company about which nobody heard before. Since then co-owners of Tarino Limited — MTS and Nomihold — have no control over Bitel.

Then a number of resales of stocks of Bitel followed, and eventually at the beginning of July, 2006 Bitel was sold to child structure of Alfa Group — SkyMobile company.

In July, 2008 the offshore Crowell controlling SkyMobile provided JSC VimpelCom (Beeline) options for acquisition of all stocks of SkyMobile within the transaction on purchase of the Kazakhstan mobile operator "KAR-Tel" by VimpelCom.

As of March, 2011 "KAR-Tel" also managed Bitel network in the territory of Kyrgyzstan.

Court with participation of MTS

MTS during legal procedure on return of control over Bitel tries to prove that all resales of stocks of Bitel were dummy, and actually stands Alfa Group behind all transaction. Certificates of the companies acting on behalf of MTS that Rezervspetsmet was only a screen for actions of "subsidiary" of Alfa Group — Altimo company are provided in materials of court of the Isle of Man. According to MTS, Altimo directly participated in preparation of the documents which provided transition of control over Bitel to Rezervspetsmet. Moreover, the party of MTS provided analysis results of metadata (computer characteristics of electronic documents and letters) which say that press releases Rezervspetsmet prepared with participation of managers of Altimo company and were sent through the Internet gateway Altimo.

The Russian actress of TV series and the singer Sofya Ignatova played a noticeable role in the history with loss of JSC MTS of control over the Kyrgyz mobile operator Bitel. It follows from materials of the High Court of justice of the British Isle of Man which considered on March 10 one of procedural questions during long process on contest of Bitel loss by MTS company. Ignatova at some point was even considered as the beneficial owner of Rezervspetsmet company which directly took away from MTS of the right to Bitel therefore the Russian cellular giant already lost $150 million and can lose $176 million more if does not manage to dispute the recent decision of the London chamber of the international arbitration court.

The beneficial owner of Rezervspetsmet is unknown for today, the party of MTS says only that it is one of large Russian businessmen. Originally as the beneficial owner of Rezervspetsmet Sofya Ignatova was called, then this statement was withdrawn.

Nevertheless the certificate of Denis Shershnev appointed Rezervspetsmety in December, 2005 the CEO of Bitel that it kosultirovatsya personally from Ignatova concerning one of the subsequent resales of stocks of Bitel is provided in materials of court.

On the basis of the data the party of MTS in the claim calls Ignatova, along with other persons and the Altimo company responsible for unlawful taking at MTS of the rights to Bitel. Besides, MTS demands from Ignatova, among other defendants, compensation of the losses suffered as a result of loss of control over Bitel.

Sofya Ignatova

By March, 2011 Ignatova acted in 15 TV series, the most known of them — She-wolf, "Are happy together", "The Heart Has A Will Of Its Own", Lawyer. It is remarkable that its first role falls on the same 2005 when Rezervspetsmet was taken away by Bitel from MTS. In March, 2011 Ignatova acts in series of Amazon where her character — the adventurer close familiar with underworld. In addition to Ignatov's cinema practises music. She participated in several bands, in particular, in 2003-2009 sang in the Other Rules group.