OJSC Pobeda LSR (a subsidiary of LSR Group) has applied to the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce to start arbitration proceedings under its claim to CERIC SA. This claim relates to the contract termination notice sent to CERIC SA, demanding advance payments under the contract to be returned and stating that OJSC Pobeda LSR reserves the right to claim for losses compensation. On 30 April 2009, OJSC Pobeda LSR received a notice from the Baker & McKenzie  law firm, representing the interests of OJSC Pobeda LSR, with the acknowledgement of acceptance of the request for arbitration by the Arbitration Institute and commencement of the arbitration proceedings. The dispute is to be finally settled by the Arbitration Institute. 

It should be noted that OJSC Pobeda LSR, in the framework of the implementation of a brick plant construction project in the Leningrad region, entered into the contract with CERIC SA in December 2007. Under the Contract Ceric was obliged to design and supply two production lines with a total capacity of 195 million conventional building and facing bricks per year, and also to design the indoor infrastructure for the main production building.

Sergey Begoulev, General Manager of OJSC Pobeda LSR commented:

“We are not carrying out construction works today because we do not have an approved design yet. However, the brick plant project we carry on with and still in progress. We keep on obtaining necessary statutory approvals, in particular, recently we got an approval for gas limits, as well as we continue designing of a third production line with an annual capacity of 25 million special ceramic products jointly with TECTON GmbH Keramikanlagen, Germany.”

OJSC Pobeda LSR (a subsidiary of LSR Group) is the largest producer of ceramic bricks in Russia. It comprises three brick factories in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region: Keramika, Lenstroikeramika and Pobeda.  The product range of Pobeda LSR includes all types of building and facing bricks as well as porous large-format RAUF bricks. Pobeda LSR has been developing its own retail chain of Brick Centre outlets and owns sources of raw materials: Krasny Bor quarries of Cambrian Blue Clay and Lenstroikeramika-Karieyr. Pobeda LSR has a regional representative office in Moscow.