OREANDA-NEWS. December 3, 2010. A range of mass media, unfortunately including several prominent sources, circulated false information concerning the decision of the Federal Customs Service to withdraw UTair Aviation's name from the list of Registered Customs Brokers for the Carrier’s non-payment of the Custom Duties and Taxes.

This information is not factual and a gross misrepresentation of UTair Aviation's corporate conduct as UTair Aviation has never had any arrears on the payment Custom Duties or Taxes to the Federal Budget of Russian Federation. In actuality, UTair Aviation has made the decision to stop acting as a Customs Broker, instead delegating this activity to its affiliated company JSC  UTair Engineering. Given these circumstances, it was decided not to extend UTair's bank guarantee, granted for the Federal Custom Service in Russia and, furthermore, to withdraw the company's name from the registry of Certified Customs Brokers. In this way the discontinuation of UTair's respective license from the Federal Custom Service coincides with this state of affairs, as clearly described in the writ No 2104 by the Federal Custom Service and not as a result of the non-payment of duties and taxes.

UTair would like to take this opportunity to remind the reporting personnel in the media establishment of their responsibility to thoroughly and objectively investigate official information, the misrepresentation of which can cause unwarranted damage to the reputation of those parties to which this unverified information pertains. We at UTair ask media professionals to be more careful in reporting official information of this kind and, should difficulties arise in understanding, to seek professional commentary from the UTair representatives to avoid any misunderstanding.