The RULF law firm in Moscow has hired Partner Alexandr Shurygin to head the firm’s corporate and banking practices.
Alexandr Shurygin (rulf-law.com)
Shurygin is a generalist, but specializes primarily in handling Banking/Finance and M&A, as well as “transactions related to real estate, bankruptcy proceedings, and proceedings in international arbitration.”
Shurygin worked with Allen & Overy in Moscow from 2007 to 2014, and before that was with Norton Rose.
Liniya Prava has been retained to advise on the “Vnukovo Airfield Infrastructure Development” project. According to the firm, “the project involves preparation and conclusion of a concession agreement in relation to the airport’s airfield infrastructure between a grantor (a competent state authority) and a Vnukovo airport operator, which will allow [it] to raise finance from the Russian National Welfare Fund.
The project will be implemented on the basis of ‘Moscow Air Cluster Development Scheme until 2030’ which regulates arrangements for airport infrastructure facilities management, as well as the development of airport external ground infrastructure and the Unified Air Traffic Control System.”
The firm reports that its “comprehensive” legal support will include reviewing options to grant a concession for the airfield infrastructure, drafting a concession agreement, making necessary amendments to a business plan and an investment project passport, preparing arguments in favor of raising funds from the National Welfare Fund, and representing the investment project before the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry for Economic Development.
Liniya Prava has announced that it has been selected by RUSNANO OJSC’s tender committee to help the company create an investment partnership and place RUSNANO’s project portfolio under the control of RUSNANO Management Company LLC, acting as a managing partner.
According to Liniya Prava, the firm’s support will include drafting an investment partnership agreement, amending the incorporation documents that regulate the RUSNANO Management Company and SUSNANO OJSC activities, reviewing the tax and legal effects of the transfer of RUSNANO’s investment projects to the investment partnership, and providing legal support on the procedure of asset transfer under the control of RUSNANO Management Company LLC.
Liniya Prava has announced that it has been selected by RUSNANO OJSC’s tender committee to help the company create an investment partnership and place RUSNANO’s project portfolio under the control of RUSNANO Management Company LLC, acting as a managing partner.
According to Liniya Prava, the firm’s support will include drafting an investment partnership agreement, amending the incorporation documents that regulate the RUSNANO Management Company and SUSNANO OJSC activities, reviewing the tax and legal effects of the transfer of RUSNANO’s investment projects to the investment partnership, and providing legal support on the procedure of asset transfer under the control of RUSNANO Management Company LLC.
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe has announced that M&A and Capital Markets specialist Konstantin Kroll has joined the firm as a partner in its M&A and Private Equity Practice Group.
Kroll is dual-qualified in Russian and English law, and he has an LL.M. from Manchester University along with a Diploma in Law, with honors, from Moscow State University. He joins from Jones Day, where has has worked since 2011. Previously, he was a partner with Allen & Overy, where he led the firm’s debt capital markets and derivatives practices in Russia.
According to an Orrick press release, Kroll “has advised on some of the largest M&A and private equity transactions in the energy, manufacturing, consumer and banking sectors in the Russian market.” The firm also explained that “within capital markets, Mr. Kroll has acted for issuers and managers on Russian and international IPOs and has been involved in MICEX, LSE (AIM and primary market), Hong Kong, Luxembourg, NYSE and Irish listings. He advises on the issuance of debt, equity, and synthetic instruments, including GDRs/ADRs, LPNs, CLNs, ELNs, and CDOs, exchangeable and convertible bonds, repackagings and securitizations. Most recently, Mr. Kroll represented Russian Copper Company in the formation of a joint venture with Gerald Metals to develop a major copper deposit and in its acquisition of Enisseiskaya Industrial Company, the holder of an exploration license for Elegest coal deposit considered to be one of the largest deposits of baking coal in the world. He also represented Evraz in the formation of a joint venture with Alrosa in the metal industry, advised on a sovereign Eurobond issue by Byelorussia and acted for two Russian issuers on ‘dim sum’ bond issues in Hong Kong.”
Kroll is enthusiastic about the new role: “I’ve long worked across the table from Orrick and am very excited to join this top quality team. Orrick’s 25-office global platform will be of great value to my clients as they increasingly focus on international opportunities. The firm has distinctive international strengths, such as its top 3 ranked HKSE practice and its representation of large Chinese enterprises, as well as its top tier African infrastructure practice, that are key to business strategies my clients are pursuing.”
Norton Rose Fulbright has announced that Julian Traill will join the firm’s Moscow office as a Partner.
Julian Traill (Norton Rose)
Traill has been based in Russia since 2008. He advises international and Russian clients in various sectors including financial services, natural resources, agriculture, transport and infrastructure, consumer products and retail, IT, and pharmaceuticals. His practice focuses primarily on corporate, M&A and private equity. He previously practiced with law firms in London and Sydney.
The firm reports that Traill will replace Nick Dingemans, who recently relocated to lead the firm’s corporate team in Singapore.
Anatoly Andriash, joint head of the firm’s Moscow office, commented: “We remain strongly committed to Russia and I am delighted to welcome Julian, who has extensive experience of advising clients on deals in the market. His capabilities are very much aligned with the key strengths of our global practice. Julian will complement and enhance our Russian practice which is an integral part of our global capability. In parallel, we are seeing an increasing emphasis on Asia from our clients. Nick’s move adds further weight to our ability to meet the needs of Russian clients operating in the region and of Asia-based clients investing in Russia. We will continue to work closely with Nick in developing our Russian-Asian capabilities.”
The Krasnoyarsk Region Commercial Court has ordered Kansky Commercial Bank to pay RUB 597,700 (USD 16,773) to Microsoft Corporation for the illegal use of the company’s software, the court told RAPSI on Wednesday.
The court has thus granted Microsoft Corporation‘s lawsuit.
The Corporation claimed in its lawsuit that during the inspection of the bank in the Krasnoyarsk Region the law enforcement agencies found that the bank illicitly used Microsoft computer software, the court’s press office reported earlier.
In May 2013, another Microsoft Corporation’s copyright claim seeking RUB 101,000 (app. USD 3,000) against the Russian-German joint venture Autobahn for the illegal use of its software was rejected by the Moscow Region Commercial Court.
Microsoft claimed in its lawsuit that during the inspection of the venture’s premises in the Moscow Region by law enforcement agencies, nine computers were found to have five unlicensed Microsoft Office programs installed on them. These computers were then confiscated.
The court rejected the claim, stating that the examination of the protocol of the inspection, as well as the expert’s conclusion, do not sufficiently prove that the unlicensed software submitted for examination was found on the computers confiscated from the defendant. In addition, the defendant stated that the inspection was not held at the address specified in the lawsuit, and Microsoft was not able to provide conclusive evidence that it was.
Microsoft filed an appeal against the ruling which was later rejected by the Tenth Commercial Court of Appeals.
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In what Shearman & Sterling calls “an historic arbitral award,” on July 18, 2014, an Arbitral Tribunal sitting in The Hague held unanimously that the Russian Federation had breached its international obligations under the Energy Charter Treaty by destroying Yukos Oil Company and appropriating its assets.
The Tribunal awarded the claimants just under half of their USD 114 billion claim. Shearman & Sterling represented the successful claimants, the majority shareholders of Yukos, while lawyers from Baker Botts and Cleary Gottlieb represented the Russian Federation.
In 2003, when the events underling the arbitration occurred, Yukos was the largest oil company in Russia in terms of daily crude oil production. It had around 100,000 employees, six main refineries and a market capitalization of about USD 33 billion. It was controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky (foto), until he was arrested at gunpoint in 2003 and convicted of theft and tax evasion in 2005. The company, once worth USD 40 billion, was broken up and nationalised, with most assets handed to Rosneft, a company run by Igor Sechin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin.
Shearman & Sterling filed its claims in October 2004, and the arbitration started in February 2005. On November 30, 2009, the Arbitral Tribunal — sitting under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration — issued a decision on jurisdiction, holding that the Russian Federation was bound by the ECT by virtue of its provisional application (despite the fact that the Treaty had not been ratified by the Russian Duma), and that the claimants were protected investors under the ECT.
The dispute attracted massive media attention, and in the end the Tribunal concluded that, “Yukos was the object of a series of politically-motivated attacks by the Russian authorities that eventually led to its destruction,” and that the Russian Federation’s aim was “to bankrupt Yukos, assign its assets to a State-controlled company, and incarcerate [Mikhail Khodorkovsky] who gave signs of becoming a political competitor.” The Tribunal held that the Russian Federation’s actions amounted to an “unlawful expropriation,” that the Russian Federation had breached its obligations under Article 13(1) of the ECT, and that the claimants were entitled to “reparation for the injury they suffered as a result of those of [Russian Federation’s] measures that the Tribunal has found to be internationally wrongful.”
The Tribunal ordered the Russian Federation to pay damages in excess of USD 50 billion to the subsidiaries of the Gibraltar-based Group Menatep (which now exists as the GML holding company), which controlled Yukos. The Tribunal also ordered the Russian Federation to reimburse an additional USD 60 million in legal fees (which Shearman & Sterling estimates as constituting 75% of the fees incurred in the proceedings), and EUR 4.2 million in arbitration costs. The Tribunal also held that the claimants will be entitled to post-award interest if the Russian Federation fails to pay the amounts due by January 15, 2015. According to Shearman & Sterling, “this is by far the largest award ever rendered by an arbitral tribunal.”
The award will be shared amongst the shareholders, including Russian-born Leonid Nevzlin, a business partner of Khdorovsky’s, who fled to Israel to avoid prosecution. He has a stake of around 70 percent. The other four ultimate beneficial owners, each of whom owns an equal stake, are Platon Lebedev, Mikhail Brudno, Vladimir Dubov, and Vasilly Shaknovski.
“The award is final and binding, and is now enforceable in 150 States under the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards,” said Yas Banifatemi, International Arbitration Partner in charge of the Shearman & Sterling Public International Law practice. (Despite this, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Moscow would most likely appeal the decision).
“This award is a major victory for us. After intense scrutiny, the Tribunal confirmed what the Claimants have been saying all along, namely that Yukos was destroyed, and its assets expropriated, for political reasons,” said Tim Osborne, director of GML.
According to Emmanuel Gaillard, Head of Shearman & Sterling’s International Arbitration Group, “this is a great day for the rule of law: a superpower like the Russian Federation is held accountable for its violations of international law by an independent arbitral tribunal of the highest possible calibre.”
The Tribunal was chaired by Yves Fortier, formerly Canada’s Representative on the UN Security Council and President of the Council. The Russian Federation appointed Judge Stephen Schwebel, former President of the International Court of Justice, and the Claimants appointed Dr. Charles Poncet, Partner at CMS von Erlach Poncet, in Geneva.
The proceedings involved a ten-day hearing on jurisdiction and admissibility in 2008 and a 21-day hearing on the merits in 2012, attended by over 50 party representatives as well as fact witnesses and experts. The parties’ written submissions exceeded 6,500 pages and the transcript of the hearings is over 3,300 pages long. Over 11,000 exhibits were filed with the Tribunal.
According to Shearman & Sterling, “the expropriation of our clients’ investment in Yukos was achieved through a series of steps, which included paralyzing the Company (notably through the arrest, imprisonment and harassment of its management and employees), manufacturing a pretext for the taking of the Company’s assets (namely, the fabrication of over USD 24 billion in tax debt), using that pretext to take Yukos’ assets piece by piece (beginning with Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos’ crown-jewel asset), and later transferring all of the Company’s assets to Russian State-owned companies Rosneft and Gazprom. This in turn allowed Rosneft to become the nation’s largest oil producer whose current market capitalization is at USD 67 billion. The Russian Federation’s actions culminated in the liquidation of Yukos in November 2007, and the complete and total deprivation of our clients’ investments.”
Yukos’ majority shareholders were represented in the arbitration proceedings by Shearman & Sterling Partners Emmanuel Gaillard and Yas Banifatemi, and Counsel Jennifer Younan. Among the over 20 firm additional arbitration lawyers working on the matter over the years were Partners Coralie Darrigade, Mark McNeill, Associates Ilija Mitrev Penusliski, Lara Kroop, Elise Edson,Ketevan Betaneli, Dimitrios Katsikis, Benjamin Siino, Ximena Herrera-Bernal, and Emmanuel Jacomy.
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton lawyers representing the Russian Federation included Partners Claudia Annacker, Lawrence Friedman, David Sabel, Matthew Slater, Senior Counsel William McGurn, and Counsel J. Cameron Murphy.
Baker Botts lawyers on the matter included Partners Michael Goldberg, Jay Alexander, Johannes Koepp, and Alejandro Escobar.
photocredits: businessinsider.com
Oleg Khuazhev has taken on the role of Deputy Projects Director – Head of Projects at Renova Group (Legal and General Management) in Russia.
Prior to the move he was ICT Group’s Legal Director in the Investment Department for three years. Khuazhev’s previous experience includes 2 years with Marshall Capital Partners and little under one and a half years with White & Case in Moscow.
Renova Group represents a private business group that consists of asset management companies and direct and portfolio investment funds owning and managing assets in metals mining, oil, machine building, mining, construction development, energy, telecommunications, nanotechnologies, utilities and financial sectors in Russia and abroad. It is a stakeholder and strategic investor in many Russian and international companies, including TNK-BP, UC Rusal, Integrated Energy Systems, Oerlikon and Sulzer. Renova Group integrated direct investment funds and management companies operates in the energy sector (IES, Avelar Energy), real estate development (Renova StroyGroup), portfolio investments (Svarog Capital Advisers, Columbus Nova), telecommunications (Akado Group), chemical industry (Renova Orgsintez) and precious metals (Zoloto Kamchatki).
The group invests in Russia, Switzerland, Italy, South Africa, Ukraine, Latvia, Kirghizia, Mongolia, and other countries.
An Amsterdam district court ruling in the Yukos International UK BV USD 333 million case against Rosneft is expected by August 27, RIA Novosti reported Friday citing the Russian company’s statement.
Yukos International filed a lawsuit against Rosneft and other unrelated defendants with the Court of Amsterdam District. The plaintiff demanded compensation of up to $333 mln plus interest for the period from February 7, 2011, plus expenses.
The company claims that it incurred losses due to the freezing of its bank account as a result of a 2008 court ruling regarding Yukos’s bankruptcy and liquidation.
The first court hearing in the case was held on June 27, 2012. Rosneft filed an exception to the lawsuit claiming that the court ruling to freeze the account was justified. The company also claims that Yukos International did not incur any losses as it deposited its funds in an interest-bearing account it selected.
Yukos International filed a statement in response on February 20, 2013. Rosneft did the same on May 15. The hearing on the merits took place on January 9, 2014. At the hearing, Yukos International was allowed to make changes to its claim. On February 26, Rosneft presented a reply to the new claim.
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