Moscow, Russian Federation – Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (“MTS” – NYSE: MBT), the leading telecommunications operator in Russia and the CIS, announces that on August 31, 2012, it received a copy of a claim filed with Kyiv Commercial Court by LLC MTS, a Ukraine-based enterprise, to cancel international registrations of the MTS’s trademark.

The claim contests MTS’s ownership and use of the different ways in which the initials ‘MTS’ are written in both Latin- and Cyrillic script. Nevertheless, MTS’s trademarks are registered as ¹ 903855, 905710, 907958, 907993 under the Madrid Agreement and Protocol for the International Registration of Marks as overseen by the World Intellectual Property Organization and belong to MTS. The court accepted the claim on July 05, 2012, and the date of hearings is set for September 17, 2012.

Naturally, MTS believes that its ownership and use of its brand is incontestable and will vigorously defend its legal rights.