Today in Russian Business – Feb 8, 2010

Russia plans to put a 3 million-ton dent in its grain stockpile.  Is Gazprombank planning to float on the London Stock Exchange?  A senior Sberbank manager has been arrested on suspicion of laundering over $100 million from the company from forged contracts.  A tycoon’s lawsuit against Moscow Mayor Yury Lukhov and his deputies over a broken agreement on the Hotel Rossiya has been dismissed.  The head of the Federal Health and Social Development Inspection Service has apparently been dismissed by Vladimir Putin for publicly disagreeing with the government (‘siding with the experts’ instead) over legislation to regulate prices in the pharmaceutical market.  Boris Berezovsky’s libel case against the man who accused him of murder begins in London this week.  Russia will lend Sri Lanka $300 million to buy military equipment from it.  A Russian company has bought the entire Latvian town of Skrunda-1 for less than $4 million.