News

Lithuanian prosecutors have issued a European arrest warrant for the Russian owner of the Portsmouth Football Club in connection with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets stripped from Snoras Bank, the 5th largest in Lithuania.

Prosecutors said they Vladimir Antonov and his Lithuanian partner Raimundas Baranauskas are the main suspects in a pretrial investigation into an alleged fraud and money laundering case that is threatening to destroy two Baltic banks.

REUTERS:

* Russian banker, with partner, suspected of embezzlement, fraud

* Follows seizure of Lithuania's Snoras bank

* Daughter bank in Latvia likely to be liquidated-regulator

* Funds missing from both banks-officials

* People queue at Latvian bank for small withdrawals allowed (Addds arrest warrant for former bank owners, share prices)

By Nerijus Adomaitis and Aleks Tapinsh

VILNIUS/RIGA, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Lithuania on Wednesday issued a European arrest warrant for the Russian businessman whose bank was seized by the state last week after regulators found a hole in the bank's assets and launched a fraud probe.

The collapse of Lithuanian bank Snoras has also led to the suspension of its Latvian daughter company, Krajbanka. A Latvian regulator said the bank would likely be liquidated.

www.reuters.com

NASA Would Like to Cooperate with Lithuanian Scientists and Businesses

NASA and Lithuania could cooperate, said Simon P. Worden, Director of the NASA Ames Research Center, paying a visit in the Government of Lithuania last week.
According to Worden, the country's science potential would allow a successful contribution to the projects of NASA.
"Traditionally, NASA cooperates with Russian, European and Japanese space agencies. Yet now, implementing the new space policy of the U.S. President Barack Obama, we are looking for ways to cooperate with non-traditional and technologically advanced partners. Lithuania is known for advanced technologies, especially in the field of small satellites. We are considering cooperation with different universities and companies and we expect to implement joint projects," NASA official said after the meeting with Lithuanian Prime Minister.

Illustration: See our Section 19.

Real estate experts predict that the nationalization of the Snoras bank might adjust the behaviour of residents and cash flows. Lithuanian depositors' general reaction to the present situation has not been absolutely clear yet. It is likely that a certain amount of funds of the deposits in banks might be directed to tangible fixed assets.

The present turmoil may encourage people to seek alternatives to deposits, the real estate company Akorus Real Estate sales manager Donatas Kojala said. Real estate may be one of the asset classes which may see growth in demand, he added.

Read more:
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/real_estate/?doc=48958

• Vladimor Antonov also owns UK Portsmouth Football Club
• Antonov's company says decision will not affect Portsmouth

The company run by Portsmouth owner Vladimir Antonov has insisted the club will not be adversely affected by the Lithuanian Central Bank's investigation of Snoras Bankas.
Photograph: Chris Ison/PA Wire/Press Association Images

The company run by Portsmouth owner Vladimir Antonov has insisted the club will not be adversely affected after a Lithuanian bank, of which Antonov is a majority shareholder, was placed in temporary administration.

The Lithuanian Central Bank is reported to be conducting an evaluation of AB Bankas Snoras's financial position, after it was suggested assets of around £250m may not be accounted for.

According to Bloomberg's businessweek.com, the Central Bank governor Vitas Vasiliauskas said more than 1bn litai was the subject of the investigation. However, Antonov's Convers Sports Initiatives (CSI) has insisted that what is going on on the continent will not cause any problems at Fratton Park or anywhere else within the company's global sphere of influence.

Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/18/portsmouth-reassure-fans-administration-concerns?newsfeed=true

Lithuania’s banking regulator said hundreds of millions of dollars in assets may be missing from Bankas Snoras AB after the government took over the Baltic nation’s fifth-biggest lender on concern it may be performing illegal operations.
More than 1 billion litai ($392 million) of assets may be unaccounted for, central bank Governor Vitas Vasiliauskas told reporters yesterday in the capital, Vilnius. Snoras’s operations were halted until Nov. 21 and a state administrator appointed after the lender ignored recommendations to reduce its credit risk, the regulator said in a statement.
The Baltic region is recovering from the worst recession in the European Union, during which Latvia sought an international bailout after rescuing Parex Banka AS to protect it against a run on deposits. With 19.4 billion litai in foreign-currency reserves, Lithuania can handle the takeover of Snoras, which has a 10 percent market share, according to AB DnB Bankas economist Jekaterina Rojaka.
“This isn’t a systemic problem for the banking sector,” Rojaka said yesterday in a telephone interview from Vilnius. Still, “the situation requires speedy and smooth action to contain panic and prevent a fall in government bonds.”
Lithuania’s 10-year dollar bond declined today, sending the yield up 0.12 percentage point to 6.39 percent, the highest since Oct. 13. The six-month interbank rate, or the Vilibor, increased 10 basis points to 2.23 percent, the highest since Aug. 13, 2010. The NASDAQ OMX Vilnius index fell 2.53 percent.  

Read more:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-18/lithuania-seeks-missing-assets-in-takeover-of-snoras-bank.html

 
Vladimir Antonov, Chairman of AB Bank SNORAS Supervisory Board, main shareholder of the bank.

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov (born 1975) is a London-based Russian banker, entrepreneur and investor. In 2007 Antonov’s personal wealth was estimated at $300,000,000 which ranks him as number 182 among Russian millionaires.

Education
In 1996, Antonov graduated from Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics.[5] The university is one of the largest Russian economic institutes of higher education and a member of several international university bodies, such as the European University Association and the European Foundation for Management Development.

Banking
Since 2004 Vladimir Antonov has been chairman of the Supervisory Board of the International Financial Group Convers Group.[8] He is also Chairman of the Supervisory Board of JSC Finasta Holding, a member of the Supervisory Board of JSC bank Finasta, the main shareholder and Chairman of the Lithuanian Bank Snoras Supervisory Board, a member of the Supervisory Board of the bank Latvijas Krājbanka, and a member of the Board of Directors of the bank Banco Trasatlantico S.A.

Conversbank
Conversbank Financial Group operates as a financial and banking company in Europe and offers banking services for non-residents of the Russian Federation. The Group was founded in 1989 and is based in Moscow, the Russian Federation. It has branches in England, the Czech Republic, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Estonia.

Bankas Snoras
Vladimir Antonov is the main shareholder and chairman of Lithuania’s 5th biggest bank, Bankas Snoras. The company was formerly known as Siauliai Regional Bank and changed its name to AB Bankas Snoras in 1993. AB Bankas Snoras was founded in 1992 and is based in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 2009 the bank applied to the British Financial Services Authority to operate in the UK. The FSA refused permission to conduct business in the UK because it repeatedly gave “misleading and incomplete” answers to the regulator. These include failing to mention that it had been refused permission to take retail deposits in Russia and had been fined by the Lithuanian banking regulator. The FSA also attacks the record of Bankas Snoras’ largest shareholder and chairman of its supervisory board, Vladimir Antonov, whom it accuses of withholding information.

“These failures are not an isolated instance but are examples of an ongoing pattern of behaviour by institutions controlled by Mr Antonov,” the FSA said. The investigations by Lithuanian financial authorities and National Bank discovered that Snoras bank stated the possession of inexistent offshore assets. In order to prevent the bank from collapse and protect small shareholders and savings accounts holders, on the 16th of November, 2011 100% of bank Snoras shares of the bank Snoras were nationalised by the Lithuanian government. The bank and its operations is now under criminal investigation.

Investbank
Until March 2011, Vladimir Antonov was the First Deputy Chairman of Investbank. The bank was controlled by Vladimir Antonov following a merger with Grankombank, Voronezhprombank and Conversbank in April 2008. The company Investbank works closely with affiliated financial structures both inside Russia and abroad. Its service network covers Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Sverdlovsk, Voronezh and Rostov regions.

SAB -Spyker Cars
On 28 April 2011, the Swedish National Debt Office (NDO) approved Vladimir Antonov as a shareholder of Dutch car maker Spyker. The debt office approved Vladimir Antonov's maximum investment of 30 million euros in Saab, owned by Spyker Cars in exchange for a stake of up to 29.9 percent of the company. The Swedish National Debt Office stated: "The National Debt Office has found no reason to deny the application from Saab and Spyker to make Vladimir Antonov an owner in Spyker."

Bo Lundgren, head of the Swedish National Debt Office said that part of the reason the Debt Office's review of Antonov took so long was the agency's need to examine rumours about his background, stating: "There have been a lot of rumours floating around which have led us to do this type of investigation. But we haven't found anything to indicate that he's inappropriate as an owner."

In February 2011, it was announced that Spyker Cars NV, the Dutch owner of Saab Automobile, agreed to sell its sports-car unit to Vladimir Antonov. Antonov, a former Spyker chairman and shareholder, is expected to pay 15 million euros ($21 million) for the company. In an article in the Financial Times in February 2011, Antonov said that newly acquired Spyker will build the company's new C8 sports car in Coventry and will also produce a sports-utility vehicle.

History
In 2007, Bankas Snoras acquired 29.9% of Dutch luxury automobile manufacturer, Spyker Cars, making Vladimir Antonov the single largest shareholder in the company.

In January 2010, it was reported that General Motors was preparing to sell Saab to Spyker for a nominal fee, and that the Swedish government had agreed to guarantee loans for the purchase from the European Investment Bank (EIB). If the takeover had been successful, the Saab brand and its operations would have been largely unaffected.

Allegations
Antonov's interests (29.9% of the shares) in Spyker Cars were said to have delayed the purchase of Saab Automobile in late 2009. An investigation by the Swedish monetary agency Riksgälden and the Swedish security police Säpo had allegedly found connections between the Antonov family and organized crime, as well as involvement in money laundering. Säpo reported their findings to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and shortly afterwards GM stopped further talks about the deal until the Antonov family had sold their shares in Spyker Cars.

From Wikipedia

SAAB/Spyker in January 2011:
GM decides Vladimir Antonov is a good guy after all

Vladimir Antonov - Not a 'Red under the Bed' after all.

GM has decided earlier this year that Spyker backer Vladimir Antonov is not a ‘Red under the Bed’ or the Russian Mafia’s banker after all. So now they’re happy to bank his money.
Some detected the odour of McCarthyism when GM told Spyker there could be no deal on Saab unless it showed major backer Vladimir Antonov the door. Which seemed a bit harsh; after all, there seemed no evidence to support accusations of links to organised crime by Vladimir or Convers Bank. It seemed to the casual observer that GM had developed a terminal case of Reds under the Bed.
But it now seems that GM has had a change of heart. It now appears ready to accept Vladimir/Convers as investor/shareholder/piggybank for Spyker/Saab (delete as required). Which could have much to do with an investigation commissioned by Vladimir which disproved all allegations of connections between Vladimir/Convers and the less salubrious sides of business life.
Or it could be that GM would quite like to offload the shareholding it still has in Saab (US$326 million of redeemable preference shares on the basis of the valuation when Saab finally got sold to Spyker.

 
Ingrida Šimonytė, Minister of Finance.

Lithuania sees no need at the moment to appeal for international financial aid after it decided to take over one of the country's leading banks, Finance Minister Ingrida Simonyte said on Wednesday.

The government earlier decided to take over Snoras Bank, the fifth-largest by assets, but with one of the biggest retail networks in the country.

"We are doing everything so that we will not need assistance," Simonyte told Reuters when asked whether her country would have to follow neighbouring Latvia, which took a bailout from the IMF and EU in late 2008 after bank problems. 

www.reuters.com

 
Knut Vollebaek.

The Lithuanian education minister, meanwhile, expects that the international community will see both sides after complaints from the Poles as the OSCE commissioner plans to announce his conclusions after his next week's visit to Poland. OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek came to Lithuania on a three day visit. After meeting with high officials Monday, he will go Tuesday to the Salcininkai district and visit Polish and Russian schools, reportsLETA/ELTA.

"We are worried. It is tension, not a conflict but tension. My aim is to try to identify the problem before it escalates into a serious conflict," Vollebaek told the LTV news service. "This visit could have been prompted by public complaints from various minorities, particularly from the Polish minorities," Education Minister Gintaras Steponavicius said.

Read more:
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/baltic_states/?doc=48714

Principle for the planned LNG terminal in Klaipeda: An FSRU (floating storage and re-gasification unit) will be moored to a pier (jetty) and every arriving LNG carrier will be moored to the FSRU, side by side.

The European Commission must find a compromise on the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in one of the Baltic countries, the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia said after they failed to reach agreement last week. 
The failure to reach a deal on the new terminal prompted Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis to suggest that the three nations should instead agree to build a natural gas pipeline from Poland to Lithuania's capital of Vilnius.
At the meeting, the Latvian side reportedly insisted that Riga was the best location for a new LNG terminal, but Lithuania and Estonia said they would only agree with this if the European Union recognised Latvia as the most suitable place for the project.
In this context, Dombrovskis suggested that the Baltic countries should first agree on building a gas pipeline from Poland to Vilnius.
Such a pipeline would diversify gas supplies for Latvia, because the Polish pipeline is connected with Germany's network, whereas Latvia's gas pipeline is connected to that of Lithuania, Dombrovskis said.
Latvia could receive gas supplied from the LNG terminal in Poland near the Polish-German border, the Latvian prime minister said.
Dombrovskis' proposal took his Baltic colleagues by surprise, according to a report on the Baltic Course news website. They said that the suggestion would be evaluated, but neither Lithuania nor Estonia was prepared to give up its LNG projects.
Lithuania wants to build an LNG terminal at the southern point of Klaipėda Port. 

Read more:
http://www.euractiv.com/energy/baltic-countries-ask-eu-solve-lng-terminal-row-news-508935

The female contingent of Lithuania’s LGBT population is severely under-represented, according to the country’s gay rights association Lithuania Gay League.

LGL’s on-going project Empowering LBT Women saw a group of volunteers send postcards to every member of the Lithuanian Parliament last week. The project is designed to promote dialogue and promote the population’s visibility at a national level

Read more:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/11/15/lithuanian-lesbians-send-handwritten-postcards-to-every-mp/

Place 21. Winslow, Arizona
This stunning shot of the Barringer Meteorite Crater in Winslow, Arizona is such a fine sight to see. It is estimated that the impact occurred around 50,000 years ago, the result of a meteor impact at some 25,000 mph. Putting it in military terms, the equivalent explosion would have been the same as a 20 Megaton hydrogen bomb.

Place 16. Curonian Spit, Russia/Lithuania
This spit, shared by Russia and Lithuania is around 80 miles long and up to two miles wide and its largest girth. The photograph, entitled ‘Following the Sun’ is aptly named and is well framed giving an amazing sense of perspective towards the horizon.

Read more:
http://www.fhr-net.co.uk/blog/2011/10/19/21-awesome-views-from-plane-windows/

 
Rasa Juknevičienė, Lithuania’s Minister of National Defence.

Lithuanian Minister of National Defence Rasa Jukneviciene last week met with Gabor Iklody, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. In the meeting the Lithuanian Minister underscored that expertise and consultations of the Energy Security Centre established in Lithuania could be instrumental to the Alliance. 

“We have generated quite a number of ideas how we could serve for the Alliance’s benefit. Our pursuit is to have the Energy Security Centre certified as NATO Centre of Excellence”, said R. Jukneviciene.

When addressing Lithuania’s issues of energy security the Minister expressed concerns about the plans to build nuclear energy plants in neighbouring areas (Belarus and Kaliningrad). She affirmed that one of Lithuanian Government’s priorities was to achieve energy independence from the Russian gas monopoly, therefore Lithuania sought to implement the third energy package of the European Union designed to separate production, supply and transfer activities from ownership rights. 

Read more:
http://www.defpro.com/news/details/29763/?SID=885763ddfc2b6649df60e2d75720d27b

 
Shozo Saito, chairman of the board of Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy and Lithuanian Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas

Lithuania and an alliance of Japanese Hitachi and U.S. General Electric hope to sign a deal by end-2012 on building a 1,300 megawatt nuclear plant by 2020, a partner said on Thursday.

Lithuania wants to build a new nuclear power plant to cut energy dependence on Russia, with Baltic states and Poland.

"We are excited about the nuclear project in Lithuania," Shozo Saito, chairman of the board of Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, told an energy conference in Lithuania capital.

Lithuanian Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas, at the same conference, said the government planned to sign the nuclear plant deal by end this year.

"I hope so," Saito told Reuters, when asked, if he saw that date as possible.

However, Sekmokas said that the signing of shareholders and concession agreements might be delayed to the beginning of 2012, if Lithuania's regional partners need more time.

Both Latvia and Estonia have indicated they were interested in the project, but Poland, which plans its own nuclear plants, has not made a final decision.

Read more at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/10/lithuania-nuclear-idUSL6E7MA1H920111110

 The Commission of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Lithuanian World Community opposes the proposal to hold a referendum on amending the Constitution to expand dual citizenship. The Seimas' decision would be enough, it said.

Five years ago, the Constitutional Court held that the Constitution establishes dual citizenship as rare exception, writes LETA/ELTA.

Politicians continue seeking solutions to amend the Constitution because the provision on the citizenship is in the part of the law that may only be changed by a referendum. The Lithuanian World Community says it would not favour the referendum as it is allegedly even unclear how to formulate the question.

"We heard some lawyers at our sittings saying that it is not the only solution. We urge seeking legal means to solve the issue rather than hold a referendum," Head of the Lithuanian World Community Commission Irena Gasperaviciute told a conference at the Seimas on Thursday.

During the conference, the commission also said that the Lithuanian world community would like to vote online in the coming parliamentary election.

Read more:
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/legislation/?doc=48593