OREANDA-NEWS. April 26, 2012. VimpelCom Ltd. (“VimpelCom”, “Company” or “Group”) (NYSE: VIP),a leading global provider of telecommunications services, announces that the Moscow Arbitration Court has issued a limited injunction order in connection with the previously announced claims by the Russian Federal Anti-monopoly service (“FAS”).

The court rejected the Russian regulator’s request to completely prohibit VimpelCom from voting its shares in its Russian subsidiary OJSC “Vimpel-Communications” (“OJSC VimpelCom”).  The injunction order states that VimpelCom and its indirect subsidiary VimpelCom Holdings B.V., which together own 100% of the shares of OJSC VimpelCom, are only prohibited from voting their shares at shareholder meetings of OJSC VimpelCom to:

 (i)  change the OJSC VimpelCom board of directors, and (ii) approve major transactions and interested party transactions, as such terms are defined under Russian law. The order does not prohibit VimpelCom and VimpelCom Holdings as shareholders of OJSC VimpelCom from exercising their other shareholder rights, including, among other things, rights to approve the OJSC VimpelCom annual accounts, to appoint OJSC VimpelCom’s external auditor, to approve dividend payments by OJSC VimpelCom and to re-elect the current OJSC VimpelCom Board members.

 The injunction order states that the limitations on shareholder voting rights would not impede OJSC VimpelCom from conducting its business on the terms on which it was conducted prior to execution of the share purchase and sale agreement and option agreement each dated February 15, 2012 between Telenor East Holding II AS (“Telenor”) and Weather Investments II S.a.r.l. (“Weather II”).  FAS has asked the Russian court to invalidate both agreements.

 The injunction order does prohibit Telenor and Weather II from (i) voting their shares of the Company to change the composition of its Supervisory Board and (ii) exercising their rights under their option agreement of February 15, 2012.

The injunction order is related to the previously disclosed claim brought by the FAS against Telenor and Weather in the Moscow Arbitration Court.  The Company has been named as a third party to the claim, which means that its rights and obligations may be affected by the claim.

 According to the injunction order, the first hearing on the merits of the FAS claim is scheduled for October 17, 2012.