VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Unless it springs a major surprise, the U.S. Federal Reserve will call time this week on its program of government bond purchases, which at one point was pumping $85 billion a month into financial markets and the economy.

Russia and Ukraine made progress on Friday towards resolving a dispute over gas supplies in time for winter, but European leaders said Moscow still had to do much more to prop up a fragile ceasefire and end fighting in eastern Ukraine.

VTB Capital, the investment arm of sanctioned Russian lender VTB Bank (VTBR.MM), has made a cash payment to secure a deal to buy most of Italian fashion house Roberto Cavalli before the end of November, two sources familiar with the situation said.

Internet auction site eBay intends to drive a wave of consolidation in Russia's e-commerce market over the next couple of years, persuading smaller companies to get on board as the economy weakens.

New York's financial regulator wants some Commerzbank AG (CBKG.DE) employees to be fired as part of a settlement over allegations the German lender improperly processed transactions with Iran and other countries facing U.S. sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter.

The European Union is quietly increasing the urgency of a plan to import natural gas from Iran, as relations with Tehran thaw while those with top gas supplier Russia grow chillier.

Russia risks slipping into recession because the government is not investing enough in the economy to weather Western sanctions, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday, criticizing the strategy so far.

The drop in oil prices to their lowest in two years has caught many observers off guard, coming against a backdrop of the worst violence in Iraq this decade, heightened tensions between the West and Russia, and sanctions against Iran.

The head of Russia's natural resources ministry said on Friday foreign oil services companies would find it difficult to return to Russia as Western sanctions would give Russian firms the opportunity to take their place in the Russian market.

The euro zone economy ground to a halt in the second quarter of the year, drained of vigour by contraction in Germany and stagnancy in France.

The Kremlin's worst clash with the West since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union has accelerated the outflow of two of Russia's most prized assets: money and brains.

DGH, in an order, required the relinquishment of awarded concessions to Reliance-BP for the 'expiry' of time for its development.