MTS announced that it has received the content of 16 findings of the tax audits conducted by Uzbekistan tax authorities. The company said that total amount of claims against the company makes up over US$900 million. Uzdunrobita intends to challenge these findings within ten days.

Uzdunrobita has filed an appeal to challenge the decision of the Tashkent Commercial Court, dating from 30 July 2012, to suspend Uzdunrobita’s license for a period of three months. The petition will be considered within a month’s timeframe.

Uzdunrobita has also filed a petition to the State Antimonopoly Committee of Uzbekistan to challenge the decisions of the antimonopoly bodies, which declared that Uzdunrobita infringed upon antimonopoly laws, consumer protection laws and laws governing advertisements. The petition will be considered within a month’s timeframe.

As reported earlier, total sum of claims of antimopoly bodies against Uzdunrobita makes up over US$80 million.

Economic Court of Tashkent on Monday annulled all licenses of Uzdunrobita. The Uzbek Agency for Communication and Information (UzACI) applied to the Tashkent Economic Court with demand to cancel all licenses of FE LLC Uzdunrobita. The UzACI accuses Uzdunrobita that its branches operated without licenses. Total sum of UzACI claims to Uzdunrobita is about US$210 million, which should be paid as license duties.

Prosecutor-General's Office of Uzbekistan opened a criminal case against top managers of Uzdunrobita. The press service of Prosecutor-General's Office said that investigators have evidence, which proves that management of Uzdunrobita and its subsidiaries had a criminal group, which was formed based on family and relative principles.

The criminal group created many schemes on decreasing taxation base, increasing cost of imported equipment and materials, hiding currency and illegal cashing “shadow” income, operating without license.

Total damage from criminal actions of top managers of Uzdunrobita exceeded 700 billion soums (about US$350 million) as of 26 July 2012.

In the result, total sum of claims of the state bodies of Uzbekistan to subsidiary of Russia’s MTS reached US$1.54 billion.