Today in Russian Business – March 31, 2011

President Dmitry Medvedev has gone on a verbal ‘rampage‘ against the ‘very bad, very bad‘ investment climate, saying that state-run companies should not have ministers on their board of directors, and that this measure would be implemented this year.  His comments apparently caused an immediate rise in Transneft’s share price.  The World Bank also went after Russia’s investment climate today, saying that it is preventing strong economic growth, and called for increased ruble flexibility.  The government is planning a ‘protectionist‘ reform of the legal service market, which could complicate things for foreign lawyers.  Russia will start harvesting black caviar from fish farms, rather than taking sturgeon eggs from the ocean, in a bid to rescue the species’ numbers from decades of unsustainable practice.  Russia’s billionaire Internet investors, Alisher Usmanov and Yuri Milner, have bought a stake in Chinese online retailer 360buy.com.  Rusal’s 2010 profits are more than triple that of the previous year.