Following the results of inspections carried out by the Accounts Chamber and General Prosecutor Office in March at Domodedovo airport, the Russian authorities may ban foreign companies from acquisition of more than 50% of the Russian airports’ shares, Kommersant reports. The officials believe that this decision will not return Domodedovo from the off-shores but it may impact the structure of future deals.

The representatives of Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Economics have held a meeting yesterday for “developing of harmonized position on making changes in the legislation regarding the participation of foreign parties in the management of strategic enterprises of transport industry”. As explained by the sources, familiar with the results of this meeting, no specific decisions have been made; however, the officials have discussed the problem of off-shore mechanisms of owing the large transport companies, especially the aviation ones.

One of the sources has also told that the meeting has been held in accordance with instruction from Sergey Ivanov and the main item of the meeting was connected with Domodedovo. The Accounts Chamber and General Prosecutor Office have stated that they were unable to perform the president’s order and find the actual owners of Domodedovo. The Deputy Prosecutor General, Alexander Buksman has declared last week that the investigators have “failed to find the last nested doll, which could have pointed at Domodedovo’s real owner. However, the same day parent structure of Domodedovo - DME Limited, registered at Man Island, has declared its intention to carry out IPO in London and has named the Chairman of the Board Dmitry Kamenshik as the only owner of it.

"It is necessary to develop a clear and understandable institutional and management structures for such enterprises,— said the official from Ministry of Transport.— Otherwise we will lose not only funds that may be a part of the budget but also we will not be able to identify the management of the largest aviation enterprises". That is why the possibility of banning the foreign companies from having more than 50% of strategic Russian transport enterprises’ shares has been discussed. At present a foreign investor may acquire the Russian aviation enterprise’s control block of shares following the permission from foreign investments committee. According to the source, Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Economics plan to declare their proposal for making changes in the legislation for foreign investments and Federal Aviation Regulations during the meeting of transport and communications committee in June.