Category: Russia

Lawyers in the Moscow office of Herbert Smith Freehills have joined the firm’s multi-jurisdictional team advising the Anex Group on its acquisition of Intourist, Bucher Reisen, and Oger Tours. All three travel businesses were part of the insolvent Thomas Cook Group.

Herbert Smith Freehills describes the Turkey-based Anex Group, which is owned by entrepreneur Neset Kockar, as “a leading tour operator with key source markets in Russia, CIS, CEE, and Germany, serving over 30 destination markets around the globe.”

Herbert Smith Freehills describes Intourist, which was founded in 1929, as “a renowned travel brand in Russia offering inbound and outbound travel services,” and reports that “the transaction involves the acquisition of Intourist’s inbound, outbound and domestic tour operator businesses, as well as retail stores, technology and other assets belonging to Thomas Cook Group.”

The firm describes Oger Tours as “one of the leading providers of Turkish holidays in the German-speaking travel market and Asian travel specialist,” and describes Bucher Reisen as “specializing for nearly 30 years in last-minute travel and year-round, low-cost travel in Germany.”

Completion of both the German and Russian transactions, according to Herbert Smith Freehills, is subject to relevant anti-trust approval. The German sale is also subject to the approval of the provisional creditors’ committee. Approvals in respect of the German transaction are expected to be received by the end of November 2019, the firm reports, and approvals on the Russian transaction are anticipated in the first quarter of 2020. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

The Herbert Smith Freehills team in Germany advising Anex Tour on the German transaction were led by Partner Nico Abel and included Partners Moritz Kunz, Marcel Nuys, and Steffen Horner, Counsels Rudiger Hoffmann and Florian Huerkamp, Consultant Anja Lingscheid, Senior Associates Julius Brandt and Simone Ziegler, and Associates Giada Lucchese, Mirko Gleitsmann, and Miriam Wehner.

The Herbert Smith Freehills team advising Anex Tour on the Russian transaction were led by London-based Partner Gavin Williams and included Moscow-based Partner Oleg Konnov, Moscow-based Of Counsel Evgeny Yuriev, and Moscow-based Associate Alexander Chupranov, as well as, in London, Partner John Chetwood, Senior Associate Brian O’Malley, and Associates Caroline Hagg and Steve Conyers, and in Madrid, Partners Pablo Garcia-Nieto and Javier Carjaval.

Dentons has advised the Stada group on a USD 660 million purchase of more than 20 prescription and over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements from the Takeda group in 11 countries.

Stada Arzneimittel AG is a pharmaceutical company based in Bad Vilbel, Germany, which specializes in the production of generic and over-the-counter drugs.

Dentons’ Russian team included Partner Sergey Klimenko, Counsels Anton Poddubny, Yana Chirko, Alexander Kovalev, Valeria Ponomareva and Radmila Nikitina, and Associates Ksenia Smirnova, Ksenia Kozhina, Artem Ermoshin, Tatiana Larina and Alina Spiridonova. Dentons reports that its team “also included specialists of the firm’s offices in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the United States, Belgium and Germany. Dentons’ partner firms in a number of CIS countries and other jurisdictions also participated in the work.”

Dentons did not reply to our inquiry on the matter.

Nadmitov, Ivanov & Partners has successfully represented Gazprom Energo before the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in a dispute over the legality of the “normative legal act” involving the tariff for the transmission of electric energy.

According to Nadmitov, Ivanov & Partners, “the Supreme Court rejected the request for an expert examination and upheld the decision of the lower court and dismissed the appeal, recognizing that the impugned normative legal act fully complies with federal laws.”

Nadmitov, Ivanov & Partners did not reply to our inquiry on the matter.

Dentons has advised the minority shareholders in Russ Outdoor LLC, Russia’s largest outdoor advertising operator, on the sale of their combined 48.57% stake in Dutch parent company Russ Out of Home BV to the owners of the third-largest operator in the sector, Vera-Olymp.

The sale price exceeded RUB 4 billion and was financed by VTB Bank, with VTB also retaining its equity interest in the company alongside JCDecaux, which will continue as a shareholder. 

According to Dentons, “Russ Outdoor was founded in 1995 under the name APR City, with News Corp acquiring a stake in 2000, which led the group to change its name to News Outdoor Russia. In 2003, News Outdoor Russia became part of the News Outdoor Group, which established its headquarters in Moscow. News Corp sold its stake to a consortium of investors in 2011, with a further sale of a minority interest to the French outdoor operator, JCDecaux in 2012.“ 

Denton’s Istanbul-based team included Partner Nadia Cansun and Associates Merve Akkus and Mert Berberoglu. Its Amsterdam-based team consisted of Partner Jan-Mathijs Hermans and Associate Vincent Wensing. Moscow-based Partner Marat Mouradov provided support as well.

Dentons did not reply to our inquiry on the matter.

Russia’s KIAP, DS Law, and Balashova Legal Consultants have announced that the three firms will be merging and operating as KIAP Digital & Smart.

According to a joint press release, “the completion of the integration process will take at least six months and is expected to end by summer 2020. The new Russian legal firm will employ over 80 professionals, including 15 partners.”

Andrey Korelskiy, Managing Partner at KIAP, Attorneys at Law, will be in charge of the new consolidated legal firm.

KIAP, which was founded as a full-service firm in 2010, has 40 lawyers and counsels.

DS Law, which provides legal support to businesses in the high-tech segment, specializes in corporate and tax law, venture transaction support, Private Equity and M&A transactions, intellectual property, and dispute resolution. The firm has six partners and 25 associates, with offices in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

Balashova Legal Consultants specializes in Russian and international labor and migration law, as well as serving the German-Austrian business community. According to BLC, its clients are “international and Russian companies operating in the field of trade, services, manufacturing, automobile and machine building, construction, consulting, in the banking and investment sectors.

“In April 2020, KIAP, Attorneys at Law, will celebrate its 10th anniversary,” explained KIAP’s Andrey Korelskiy. “Over these years, we have gone a long way to become a traditional legal firm as we are today: we have built relationships of trust with our clients, developed our brand and built a reliable and close-knit team. Now, it is time to move on, and we are proud that our first anniversary will also see us taking such a big step forward. I believe that by joining our resources and efforts, we will become even stronger as a professional team of attorneys and lawyers and set а new trend of consolidation and cooperation for the local legal market,” 

“We see this consolidation as an important milestone for our team and we are absolutely sure that this step will shape the Russian legal services market,” added DS Law Managing Partner Oleg Ponamarev. “Together, we will be able to aim at even bigger and more complex projects in different economy sectors and compete with the largest national and international legal firms in our legal services market. We will put all efforts into bringing the best practices and expertise from each of the parties of this consolidation process to our new team.” 

“Employees are the key to success in any business,” noted BLC Managing Partner Elena Balashova. “We are happy to become a part of one of the largest players in the Russian legal services market and to bring our unique competences and experience in labour and migration law to the table and provide comprehensive support to international companies entering the Russian market.”

The Moscow and London offices of Debevoise & Plimpton have advised PJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel on in its USD 750 million Eurobond offering due 2024 with a coupon rate of 3.375% per annum, the lowest coupon ever achieved by Nornickel on a USD transaction.

Debevoise describes Nornickel as “a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the world’s largest producer of refined nickel and palladium, and a leading producer of platinum, cobalt, copper and rhodium.” The company also produces gold, silver, iridium, selenium, ruthenium, and tellurium.

Debevoise has previously advised Nornickel on a number of similar finance and capital market matters, including in five previous Eurobond offerings totaling USD 4.25 billion (including USD 1 billion Eurobond offerings in 2015 (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on October 16, 2015) and 2017  (as reported on April 18, 2017).

The Debevoise team advising Nornickel on the 2019 offering was led by London Partner James Scoville and included Moscow Partner Alan Kartashkin, International Counsel Dmitry Karamyslov, and Associates Evgenii Lebedev, Charles Low, and Timur Ochkhaev. Tax advice was provided by Partner Cecile Beurrier, Counsel Huey-Fun Lee. and Associate Patrick Fasoro.

Debevoise did not reply to our inquiry on the matter.

Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners has successfully represented BlaBlaCar, a global long-distance carpooling service, in a dispute against an unidentified group of bus carriers in Russia.

According to EPAM, the bus carriers filed a collective lawsuit to prohibit BlaBlaCar services from disseminating information about the company and its services on the territory of the Russian Federation. The bus carriers claimed that BlaBlaCar violated the law on passenger transport and consumer rights protection and provided illegal information about its services on its website and mobile application.

The Court of Arbitration in Moscow denied the claiming, holding that BlaBlaCar’s activities complied with Russian legislation and that the distribution of information about long-distance travel is not prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation. The Court also ruled that the group of the bus carriers was not authorized to file a collective claim and initiate a lawsuit.

The EPAM team consisted of Partner Valeriy Eremenko, Attorney Ilya Novoselov, Junior Associate Aleksander Frenkel and Anna Kalashnikova.

Editor’s Note: On June 25, 2020, EPAM reported that the Moscow Arbitration Court’s finding had been upheld both at the court of appeal and at the Moscow District Arbitration Court, which “examined the case in the format of an online meeting.”

Kachkin & Partners has advised a consortium consisting of Gazprombank and BaltNedvizhService on an agreement to create 21-kilometer tram network in Saint Petersburg.

Based on the agreement, Gazprombank and BaltNedvizhService have agreed to build a depot, acquire 22 low-floor trams, and provide equipment repair, network maintenance, and passenger transport on a new urban transport route.

According to Kachkin & Partners, the concession agreement, which will last for 30 years, “is the largest concession project in the field of urban passenger transport.” The total amount of the concession provider’s fee for the project amounts to RUB 58 billion.

Kachkin & Partners did not reply to our inquiries about the deal.

Ivan Smirnov, the Managing Partner of the Saint Petersburg office of Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, has been selected to join the public council of the Leningrad Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia.

According to EPAM, “among the tasks of the public council are considering draft documents developed by the antimonopoly authorities, participating in monitoring the quality of the implementation of the control functions of the territorial authority, and considering issues related to the development of competition in the region.”

Smirnov specializes in dispute resolution, including in the field of antitrust law. According to EPAM, “a recognized judicial lawyer, [he] participated in a number of high-profile antitrust cases and disputes that ended in favor of the firm’s clients.”

Elena Sokolovskaya, Head of Antitrust at the Pepeliaev Group, has been promoted to Partner.

Sokolovskaya, who joined the firm in 2009, has over 20 years of experience in antitrust law, focusing on advertising, public procurement, and foreign investments legislation, as well as other issues within the competence of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service and the Eurasian Economic Commission.

Pepeliaev Group Managing Partner Sergey Pepeliaev described Sokolovskaya as, “an accomplished professional and a recognized expert on the legal consulting services market,” and said that “she shows unwavering commitment to resolving clients’ assignments promptly and effectively.”

Sokolovskaya received both of her LLB and LLM degrees from the International University in Moscow. She joined the Pepeliaev Group in 2009.