Category: Russia

Lidings has announced the promotion of Corporate/M&A lawyer Sergey Patrakeev from Counsel to Partner.

Patrakeev works in the firm’s Pharmaceutical Industry Group and will co-chair the Corporate and Real Estate practices. Before joining Lidings Patrakeev worked at Clifford Chance, Pavia e Ansaldo, Beiten Burkhardt, and CMS Hasche Sigle, and was in-house counsel for Megafon, the second largest mobile phone operator in Russia.

Lidings’ Managing Partner commented that: “We are delighted to welcome Sergey to the partnership. His outstanding reputation in the corporate practice and pharmaceuticals sector will significantly enhance our offering to the firm’s key clients and demonstrate our ambition to become counsel of choice for transactional work in Russia.”

The Moscow office of the Czech BBH Law Firm has represented PPF on a lease to the Systemica Group of approximately 17,400 square meters in the Comcity office park in southwestern Moscow.  

The Comcity office park is over 430,000 square meters in size, and consists of twelve 5-story office buildings. According to BBH, Systematica Group is one of the leading IT companies, ranked in Top10 list of systems integrators on the Russian IT market and this transaction was one of the most significant lease deals in the real estate market in the last 12 months. 

The BBH team included Partner Anastasia Tomashevskaya and Associates Sergey Shevchenko and Evgeniya Matveeva. 

Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners (EPAM) announced that it participated in the Pro Bono Lawyers Program at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

The Firm’s team in Sochi consisted of Partners Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi and Georgy Sur, the Heads of the firm’s Sports Law Practices in Ukraine and Russia, respectively, and Kyiv-based Associate Oleksandr Volkov. The three lawyers assisted participants of the Olympic Games in Sochi resolve legal disputes that arose during the Games, and represented them before the ad hoc division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which was established to facilitate a quick resolution of disputes that arose during or in connection with the Games. Under CAS rules, decisions in such disputes are issued by the arbitrators sitting at the site of the Games within 24 hours from the moment of application, requiring that legal counsel prepare cases – gather evidence and draft pleadings – within an extremely limited timeframe.

EPAM announced that Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi was based in Sochi from the end of January, and among his tasks at the Games was the representation of Argentinean Clyde Getty in the freestyle skier’s application to compete in the Sochi games, which was threatened when the International Skiing Federation’s allocation of a place in the games to the National Olympic Committee of Argentina was withdrawn. Markiyan also acted on behalf of Argentinean alpine skier Maria Belen Simari Birkner, who requested that the CAS order the Argentinean NOC to enter her in the Olympic Winter Games in the Alpine Skiing events of Slalom, Super G, and Giant Slalom, after she was refused entry in what she claimed was an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion.

Partner Georgy Sur provided stand-by assistance to the CAS pro bono panel and monitored the events for potential protests. He is currently advising the IOC on matters not directly related to the Olympic Games.

Overall, Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners handled two of the four cases heard by the CAS ad hoc Division.

Dechert has advised PepsiCo, Inc, via its subsidiary Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods, on the sale of five dairy farms in Russia.

The farms, which are located in the Krasnodar and Leningrad regions of Russia, were acquired by Pepsi in 2011 as part of its USD 3.8 billion acquisition of Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods, on which Dechert also advised. In addition to milk, the farms produce winter wheat, barley, seeds, beets, and forage. The farms also own more than 12,000 head of cattle, which provide about 38,000 metric tons of milk each year. Despite the sale, PepsiCo plans to continue purchasing raw materials from these farms.

The Dechert team advising PepsiCo on the matter was led by Head of Russian Practice Laura Brank, assisted by Moscow Counsel Olga Watson.

The Brazilian Brandi Partners law firm continues its rapid growth with the opening of an office in Moscow.  

The firm, which opened offices in Paris and Dubai in 2013 – and established partnerships with firms in Portugal and Turkey last year as well – has announced that its former Russian Desk Head Marc Solovei and former CMS Tax Partner Charles-Henri Roy will work together in Moscow with lawyers Maria Landau, Valentin Borodin, and 7 others.  

“This alliance will allow us to extend our services to our international clients in Russia,” explained Roy. “By pooling together a group of Russian lawyers who share the core values initially projected by Brandi Partners: a corporate mind-set and close client-lawyer relationships, we will bring considerable added value to our clients.” Solovei stated that “the establishment of an office in Moscow endorses the original identity of Brandi Partners, i.e. an Brazilian law firm with a strong international reach that is present in emerging markets. We have already forged strong synergies with other offices, notably the Istanbul and Milan teams, and this has already strengthened the services we offer our clients in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.”

Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev & Partners (EPAM) has announced that, on January 1, 2014, Ilya Nikiforov, Managing Partner of the firm’s St. Petersburg office, was named Vice-Chair of the ICC Commission on Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

According to EPAM, this is the first time a practitioner from Russia or the CIS has been appointed as an officer of the Commission. The Commission on Arbitration and ADR is the ICC’s rule-making body, and it promotes the settlement of international disputes through arbitration, mediation, expertise, dispute boards, and other forms of dispute resolution. In addition, the Commission provides guidance on a range of topics of current relevance in the world of international dispute resolution and fosters connections among arbitrators, counsel, and users, enabling the ICC’s dispute resolution services to respond effectively to users’ needs.  The ICC has 690 members, representing more than 90 countries.

Nikiforov is highly-respected in the field. According to Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, he was appointed an officer of the Arbitration Committee of International Bar Association and of Eurasia committee of American Bar Association. In 2013 he was appointed as a Councillor of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) European Users’ Council. He is listed as an arbitrator by the ICDR, WIPO, the Vienna International Arbitral Centre, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and national institutions throughout Russian & Eastern Europe. He has appeared before higher domestic courts at all levels, the International Commercial Arbitration Court in Moscow, and international arbitration institutions such as the ICC, LCIA and SCC. He is often engaged to serve as a Russian law counsel/expert in connection with commercial litigation and international arbitration proceedings worldwide.

White & Case is attending the Winter Olympics in Sochi to help athletes resolve any legal disputes which may arise during the games. 

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) opened a temporary office in Sochi where three cases brought by athletes who challenged their exclusion from particular events under the games’ quota allocations system have already been resolved.

White & Case lawyers represented Austrian skier Daniela Bauer in the first case on a pro bono basis. Bauer claimed that she had met the qualification requirements and that a quota place had been promised to her.

A panel chaired by Patrick Lafranchi of Switzerland, sitting with Canada’s Robert Decary QC and Matthew Mitten of the US, dismissed the application last week and found that the respondents had not discriminated against Bauer and that the federation had a legitimate sports performance justification for not recommending her nomination.

However, the White & Case team was able to prove that Austria does not have a clear criteria for the selection of athletes to qualify to take part in the Olympics. The panel has subsequently recommended that the Austrian National Olympic committee change its rules to avoid any ambiguities in the future.

White & Case Moscow-based Associates Anton Vasin, Alan Bayramkulov and Daria Vasilieva are on the ground in Sochi and, with the support from Counsel Pavel Boulatov in Moscow, are providing pro bono advice to athletes bringing claims before the CAS ad hoc division.

Dentons announced that Mark Withey will join its Moscow office as Of Counsel.

Withey previously worked with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. He specializes in advising on mergers & acquisitions (public and private), joint ventures/strategic alliances, private equity, equity capital markets, corporate re-organizations, and general corporate law matters.

Florian Schneider, Managing Partner of the Moscow office, noted: “We are glad to have Mark in our team. Dentons clients now can benefit from our increased English law capacity in Russia.”

Russian Dispute Resolution lawyer Roman Zaitsev has been promoted to Partner in Dentons’ Moscow office.

Zaitsev has successfully acted in major commercial disputes, bankruptcy proceedings, and disputes with state authorities, as well as in cases involving the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the Russian Federation. He has also participated in general enforcement proceedings, due diligence investigations, alternative dispute resolution and various other commercial, civil, procedural, general corporate and administrative matters.

Florian Schneider, Managing Partner of Denton’s Moscow office, said of the promotion that: “Roman joined our firm as an associate in the Dispute Resolution Practice in 2008. Since that time, he has shown himself to be a talented litigator, who finds creative solutions to the hardest problems. This promotion is the recognition of his personal contribution to the success of the practice over the past few years.”

Noerr has advised Siemens on an agreement with Russian Machines Corporation in the establishment of a joint venture for the production and sale of subway cars.

The two companies will invest a total of EUR 160 million in the joint venture, which will be based in the Moscow region of Russia and employ up to 800 people. The joint venture expects to participate in the tender of the Moscow Metro, which is modernizing and planning the purchase of more than 2,000 cars.

Moscow Partner Bjorn Paulsen led the Noerr team advising Siemens on the transaction. Noerr Partner Hannes Lubitzsch and Lawyer Olga Mokhonko assisted.