MOSCOW, November 14 - RAPSI. The Federal Antimonopoly Service may withdraw its lawsuit against Norway's Telenor after the company's stake in VimpelCom is considered at a Government Commission on Monitoring Foreign Investment meeting on November 21, Igor Artemyev, the watchdog's head, said on Wednesday.

"We have submitted the draft resolution regarding Telenor to the commission," he told journalists. "If the commission approves the resolution, we will eventually withdraw the lawsuit from court."

The Federal Antimonopoly Service earlier disputed a transaction between Telenor and Weather - owned by Egyptian businessman Nagib Savirirs - that resulted in the Norwegian company becoming the largest shareholder in VimpelCom, with a 39.5 percent stake. VimpelCom has a 100 percent stake in the Russian communications major of the same name.

However, another shareholder, Altimo, which controls Alfa Group's telecommunication assets, subsequently increased its stake in Vimpelcom to 47.85 percent from 41.9 percent after buying the shares of Bertofan Investments Limited, owned by Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk. Thus, the foreign investor can no longer have control of a strategic Russian company.