Moscow, Russian Federation – Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (“MTS” or the “Company” – NYSE: MBT), the leading telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS, announces that the Appeals Court of the Tashkent City Criminal Court has granted the appeal of FE LLC “Uzdunrobita”, MTS’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Uzbekistan (“MTS-Uzbekistan”), to challenge a decision, dated September 17, 2012, by the Tashkent City Criminal Court, which ruled to confiscate all assets of MTS-Uzbekistan in relation to a criminal case against four employees of MTS Uzbekistan.

The court determined that the total amount of fines and penalties to be paid by MTS-Uzbekistan to be approximately $600 million. The sum can be paid to the state budget in a number of installments during the period of eight months. The Appeals court also ruled to bring in MTS-Uzbekistan as a civil defendant in the criminal case against MTS Uzbekistan employees and to unfreeze the assets of MTS-Uzbekistan arrested pursuant to the decision of the court of the first instance from September 17, 2012. The verdict against the employees of MTS-Uzbekistan has not been overturned.

Andrei Dubovskov, MTS President and CEO, commented, «We are grateful that arguments put forth by MTS during the court hearings have been taken into consideration, and the demands of the Company have been partially satisfied. This demonstrates that there may be opportunities to begin identifying a solution mutually beneficial to all parties and to engage in constructive work over settling our differences.”

The decision of the Appeals court entered into effect upon announcement of the verdict on November 08, 2012. MTS will decide upon a further course of action to defend its interests after receiving and analyzing the materials of the case and the documents issued by the Appeals court.