Today in Russian Business – July 23, 2008

US inflation was reportedly higher than that of Russia in June. Engineering and construction firm Stroitransgaz has won a $418 million contract to build a gas pipeline across the United Arab Emirates. Developers Diversified Realty Corp., an American company, plans to build three malls a year in Russia and Ukraine over the next seven years. Russia’s chief public officer has instructed state lawyers to explore the possibility of criminal prosecution of US tobacco companies for “pressing for medievally high levels of nicotine and tar in cigarettes to be set for Russia”. Acron‘s billionaire owner Vyacheslav Kantor is seeking to raise as much as $715 million by selling existing shares. “Russia’s beer industry has reached a barrier,” with 2008 production rising at the slowest pace in four years. Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has filed a defamation suit against former business partner Vladimir Potanin and The Moscow Times to defend his business reputation, after Potanin claimed that Prokhorov reneged on an agreement to sell his stake in Norilsk Nickel to him.