Category: Russia

DLA Piper has advised London-based dark supermarket Jiffy on its USD 28 million Series A investment round.

The round was led by Denmark’s private equity firm Heartland, with US venture capital fund Flint Capital and the family office of the Bukhman brothers participating alongside existing investors Baring Vostok and LVL1, both Russian private equity firms.

According to DLA Piper, “the Series A funds will be used for expansion within London and potentially into other urban locations in the UK.” Founded in November 2020, Jiffy has cloud stores in each London borough and delivers groceries using e-bikes within a three-kilometer radius in just 15 minutes.

The DLA Piper team was led by Partner Leo Batalov and included Legal Director Andrei Sheetkin, Associate Alexandra Braterskaya, and Paralegal Alexandra Khvorostyanova.

DLA Piper has advised Safmar Financial Investments on the sale of 100% of its shares in the non-state pension fund Mospromstroy-Fond to investment group Russkiye Fondy’s non-state pension fund Vneshekonomfond.

According to the firm, SFI is a public investment holding, with its portfolio consisting of leasing, insurance, pension, brokerage assets, and IT startups. The holding also invests in industrial and retail companies.

Earlier this year, DLA Piper advised SFI on its exit from the Safmar non-state pension fund (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on April 26, 2021).

DLA Piper’s team was led by Partner Evgeny Glukhov and included Senior Associate Evgenia Kudryashova and Paralegal Alexandra Khvorostyanova.

Dentons has advised PhosAgro on its USD 500 million issuance of seven-year Rule 144A/Regulation S 2.6% loan participation notes due 2028.

BofA Securities, Citi, Gazprombank, J.P. Morgan, RBI, Renaissance Capital, SberCIB, UniCredit, and VTB Capital acted as the joint bookrunners.

PhosAgro is a Russian phosphate-based fertilizer producer. According to Dentons, the transaction is “the first-ever seven-year eurobond issue for PhosAgro, and the issue has the lowest coupon rate to date for a Russian non-state-owned corporate borrower issuing international debt securities with the same tenor.” According to the firm, “PhosAgro plans to use the proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, and to refinance some of its indebtedness.”

Dentons’ team included Moscow-based Partner Tamer Amara and Counsel Filipp Petyukov and London-based Partner Cameron Half.

Dentons did not reply to our inquiry on the matter.

Alrud has advised Mastercard on the launch of new products in Russia.

According to the firm, it took an active part in activities “related both to the daily activities of the MasterCard Group in Russia (for instance, the implementation of a corporate bonus program, the use of electronic funds, or obtaining the status of ‘the largest taxpayer’) and to the implementation of strategically-important and status solutions for the Group.”

Alrud’s team included Partners Anton Dzhuolin and Maria Ostashenko, Of Counsel Elena Novikova, Senior Associate Sergey Artemiev, and Attorney Alexey Gavrilov.

Hogan Lovells, alongside Cyprus-based Scordis, Papapetrou & Co, has successfully represented National Bank Trust in an embezzlement case against Dmitry and Alexei Ananyev and their respective wives, Lyudmila and Daria Ananyev, before Cypriot courts.

According to Hogan Lovells, “National Bank Trust successfully served a claim of approximately EUR 315 million on the Ananyevs and their wives in Cyprus and Austria. The brothers are the former owners and beneficiaries of the Russian banks Promsvyazbank PJSC and Avtovazbank JSC. National Bank Trust claims that the Ananyevs embezzled funds from these banks for their own personal gain; this second claim brings the total amount now claimed by National Bank Trust in the Cyprus courts to approximately EUR 586 million.”

According to the firm, the National Bank Trust “alleges that over a series of years the Ananyev brothers implemented fraudulent schemes by issuing unsecured (or materially undersecured) loans to shell company borrowers that were related to the Ananyevs and/or secretly owned and controlled by them. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars were siphoned off from Promsvyazbank leaving a black hole in its loan books. The bad loans were ultimately transferred to National Bank Trust in 2019 after Promsvyazbank collapsed and went into administration. Separate criminal proceedings in Russia are pending against Dmitry and Alexei Ananyev in relation to various alleged counts of misappropriation of assets related to Promsvyazbank.”

“We continue to identify new episodes of the embezzlement of funds in the case of the Ananyev brothers,” said Alexander Sokolov, President and Chairman of the Management Board of National Bank Trust. “Our task is to get to the bottom of all circumstances of what happened and recover the siphoned off assets. This new claim is in addition to the claim already filed by the bank in Cyprus against the Ananyev brothers and their wives for EUR 271 million.” 

Hogan Lovells’ team was led by Partners Alexei Dudko and Alex Sciannaca and included, among others, Counsel Denis Almakaev.

DLA Piper has successfully represented Kaproben Handles before the Judicial Collegium for Economic Disputes of the Russian Supreme Court.

According to DLA Piper, “Kaproben Handels, a Swiss coal trader, was in a dispute with Oteko, a major transhipment operator in Russia’s Taman seaport on the Black Sea, on the termination of a USD 315 million transhipment contract. The contract contained a ‘take or pay’ provision which required Oteko to order and pay for, or just pay for, the services in relation to five million tonnes of coal per year. Due to the market changes, Kaproben Handels has unilaterally terminated the contract. Oteko challenged the termination of the contract in court.”

According to the firm, the DLA Piper team “managed to overturn the unfavorable decision of the Moscow Arbitrazh Court dating back to 2020 before both the Ninth Arbitrazh Court of Appeal and the Arbitrazh Court of the Moscow Region. The Collegium for Economic Disputes of the Russian Supreme Court agreed with [Kaproben Handles’s] legal position. Taking into account that there was no uniform case law on the subject of the dispute, the court rulings may set a new precedent for the Russian transhipment market.”

DLA Piper’s team was led by Moscow-based Counsel Alina Kudryavtseva and included Associate Igor Klushin.

Morgan Lewis has advised Kazakh investment company Pioneer Capital Invest on the acquisition of JSC Asian-Pacific Bank from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

Morgan Lewis’ team included Partners Artem Tamaev and Aset Shyngyssov and Associates Emil Shagiakhmetov, Andrey Shevchuk, Philip Korotin, and Andrey Ignatenko.

Dmitry Kuptsov has been promoted to Partner with Alrud’s Dispute Resolution and Restructuring and Insolvency practices.

Kuptsov has been with the firm since 2013, having first joined as a Senior Associate. Prior to that, he worked for a year at the former Goltsblat BLP. In 2017, Kuptsov was on secondment with Slaughter and May, in London. He holds a Master’s degree in Law from Lund University.

According to Alrud, Kuptsov “has extensive experience working on full-scale projects, in the areas of restructuring and insolvency. He also successfully represented clients in arbitrations and proceedings on enforcement of arbitral awards, both in Russia and abroad.”

“We are pleased to welcome Dmitry among the Partners of our firm. For over eight years, Dmitry has been a member of the Alrud team and has passed all the main career stages in his practice,” Alrud Senior Partner Vassily Rudomino commented. “We are confident that the appointment of yet another Partner will strengthen our leading positions in the dispute resolution and restructuring and insolvency practices, and will also ensure further successes for us and our clients in these areas.”

Morgan Lewis has advised Yandex on restructuring the ownership of its MLU and self-driving joint ventures with Uber and acquisition of all shares in the Yandex.Eats, Yandex.Lavka, Yandex.Delivery, and Self-Driving businesses for a cash consideration of USD 1.0 billion. Alrud advised Uber on the deal. Cooley and Herbert Smith Freehills reportedly also advised the seller. 

According to Morgan Lewis, Yandex has also received an option to purchase Uber’s remaining stake in MLU, over a two-year period, for approximately USD 1.8 billion in cash.

Yandex is a Russian technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including ride-hailing.

Morgan Lewis’s team included Partners Tim Corbett, Nick Moore, Ksenia Andreeva, Anastasia Dergacheva, and Omar Shah and Associates Ben Davies, Abbey Brimson, and Leonidas Theodosiou.

Alrud’s team included Partners Alexander Zharskiy and German Zakharov, Senior Associates Sergey Khanaev and Roman Vedernikov, Senior Attorneys Anna Grosheva and Alexander Shipilov, and Associate Ilya Khodakov.

White & Case has advised Elga Coal LLC on a USD 1.66 billion syndicated financing deal with a pool of lenders led by Gazprombank. Linklaters reportedly advised the lenders on the transaction.

According to White & Case, the syndicate of banks included Gazprombank, acting as the arranger, facility agent, pledge manager, and account bank, and Bank Zenit, among others. “The collateral includes, inter alia, receivables under export contracts, as well as a mortgage of the railroad from the Elga coal deposit to the Baikal-Amur Mainline.”

Elga Coal is Russia’s largest producer of high-quality coking coal.

White & Case’s team in Moscow included Partners Nikolay Feoktsitov and Natalia Nikitina, Local Partner Ekaterina Logvinova, Counsels Pavel Boulatov and Daria Plotnikova, and Associate Azamat Gaisenov.

Editor’s note: After this article was published, Linklaters confirmed its involvement in the deal. The firm’s team included Partner Nikolai Kurmashev, Managing Associates Yuri Nekrasov and Anna Saenko, and Associates Alexandra Selezneva and Grigory Shishkov.