UPDATE3: Russia's Renova, T Plus execs detained over corruption case

(Adds in lede that investigative committee confirms detention, adds paragraphs 2–3, 6–8)

MOSCOW, Sep 5 (PRIME) -- Russian multi-industry holding Renova Group’s Managing Director Yevgeny Olkhovik, chairman of power producer T Plus’ board of directors, and T Plus CEO Boris Vainzikher have been detained on suspicion of giving bribes to the Komi Republic officials, the Investigative Committee’s official representative Vladimir Markin confirmed on Monday.

The location of Mikhail Slobodin, a member of T Plus’ board of directors and CEO of mobile operator VimpelCom, is being determined, Markin said.

Bloomberg reported that Slobodin is currently abroad and is not aware of the investigation at T Plus.

Markin said earlier the police were searching the Moscow offices of T Plus, part of businessman Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova Group, and affiliated companies as part of a corruption case in the Komi Republic.

In 2007–2014, former and current top executives of IES Holding, which has been reorganized into T Plus, gave bribes to officials in the Komi Republic for setting the best prices for heat and electric power and providing other incentives. The total sum of bribes exceeded 800 million rubles and a criminal case has been opened, Markin said.

Vyacheslav Leontyev, an attorney of the Komi Republic’s former head Vyacheslav Gaizer, said he believed the searches at T Plus could be connected with problems at the company’s power plants in the city of Vorkuta, which put the republic’s heating season under threat.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently ordered authorities to solve problems with power supplies in Vorkuta after the republic’s acting head Sergei Gaplikov complained that the local power system has not been upgraded over the past several years and its equipment is in a “critical state.” He said that T Plus transferred all the power system’s equipment to a joint stock company and decided to sell it through a public auction instead of fulfilling liabilities to upgrade and prepare it for winter.

T Plus said after that it plans to spend over 1.7 billion rubles on modernization of the Vorkuta plants by 2019.

(65.8684 rubles – U.S. $1)

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