Category: Ukraine

Former Baker McKenzie Partner Ihor Olekhov, who spent over 20 years with the firm, has joined CMS in Ukraine as a Partner.

Olekhov has experience in advising clients on a range of finance, banking, and investment projects and transactions, as well as corporate governance, corporate reorganizations, and financial regulation, compliance, and tax matters. 

CMS Kyiv Managing Partner Graham Conlon commented: “We are thrilled that Ihor will join our team in Kyiv. He is a very skilled lawyer who has worked on some impressive landmark transactions and projects in Ukraine and will enhance the capabilities of our market-leading team in Kyiv, growing our finance offering. He is an excellent fit for CMS with his international experience and track record to date”.

Olekhov received his law degree from the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University in 1999 and obtained an LLM degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2002.

Aequo has represented the Dragon Capital Group before the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine in relation to obtaining merger clearance for its May 2019 sale of Chumak to Delta Wilmar.

Dragon Capital is a Ukrainian group of companies in the field of investment and financial services. The company offers a range of products in equities and fixed income sales, trading and research, investment banking, private equity, and asset management. Dragon Capital was established in 2000. 

Chumak is a food industry enterprise in Ukraine with over 20 years of food products manufacturing history.

The Aequo team consisted of Counsel Sergey Denisenko, Senior Associate Yevgen Blok, and Associate Yaroslava Doros.

Avellum has advised Dobrobut and its shareholders on the sale of a minority stake in the company to Horizon Capital. Sayenko Kharenko advised Dobrobut on the deal.

Dobrobut is a network of clinics and medical institutions in the Kyiv region of Ukraine. The company invests in digitalization of business processes, including a mobile platform that allows patients to plan and pay for their visits online. According to Dobrobut CEO Oleg Kalashnikov, “as a result of this transaction, Dobrobut will provide even more types of high-quality healthcare services. Opening of new clinics will allow us to become closer to our patients, while the provision of unique services will let us master new skills. The support of our reliable partners will allow the fulfillment of Dobrobut’s most ambitious plans, aimed at the improvement of people’s health.”

Horizon Capital is a private equity firm in Ukraine, backed by over 40 institutional investors in four funds. The firm is led by its Founding Partners Lenna Koszarny and Jeffrey Neal and Senior Partner Denis Tafintsev.

The Avellum team was led by Partner Yuriy Nechayev and included Partner Vadim Medvedev and Associates Anton Arkhypov, Dmytro Symbiryov, Uliana Lutchyn, Maryna Buinytska, Alina Zagatska, Dmytro Tkachuk, Anton Zaderyholova, and Oleksandr Kulykovskyi. 

The Sayenko Kharenko team consisted of Partners Alina Plyushch and Vladimir Sayenko, Senior Associates Dmitriy Riabikin, Mykhailo Grynyshyn, and Julia Kuyda, and Associates Dmytro Hotsyn, Tymur Enkhbaiar, Oksana Daskaliuk, Dasha Dashkevych, and Igor Pomaz. 

Sayenko Kharenko has provided Ukrainian legal counsel to Deutsche Bank on a EUR 529 million facility extended to Ukraine under a World Bank guarantee.

The financing was provided in the form of two tranches, of EUR 240 million and EUR 289 million, maturing in four and ten years respectively. 

Earlier, Sayenko Kharenko advised Deutsche Bank on a EUR 349.3 million facility to Ukraine on similar terms (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on February 13, 2019). Through both transactions, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine has attracted a total of around USD 1 billion.

The Sayenko Kharenko team was led by Counsel Igor Lozenko and included Associate Oles Trachuk and Junior Associate Nazarii Pylypchuk.

Sayekno Kharenko did not reply to our inquiries about the deal. 

“You know that there are quite a lot of things happening in Ukraine now,” says Vadim Medvedev, Partner at Avellum in Kyiv, who begins by talking about the recent election in April of Volodymyr Zelensky to the Ukrainian Presidency. “Everyone is looking forward to the inauguration to see what changes in policies may follow, Medvedev says, while pointing out that, although Zelensky has asked for May 19, the specific date has not been scheduled yet. He explains that outgoing President Petro Poroshenko was considered to be a “’business-as-usual’ candidate,” but the business community is uncertain about Zelensky’s plans, “as there are a lot of gray areas and open issues with respect to his policies and programs — it’s simply unclear.”

“Another thing which is currently on the business agenda,” Medvedev says, “is the reform of the Ukrainian Fiscal Service.” Although the Tax and Customs departments were brought under a single roof in 2012, that experiment has apparently not been successful, and the “tax focus has often overwhelmed the customs concerns,” so the two are being once again split into separate state authorities. Medvedev says that no definitive timetable has been approved yet, “but what we have seen during the recent months is an open competition for the positions of head of both new services, and that process has been delayed by multiple challenges in court by various interested parties, some claiming an entitlement to one position or the other, and others accusing the process of lacking transparency.” Medvedev smiles, though, calling it “part of the political process.” He also reports that former Deputy Minister of Finance Serhii Verlanov, a tax lawyer with significance experience in the Big 4 and various law firms, has just been announced as new head of the country’s Tax service. The likely head of the Customs service is Maxim Nefyodov, who was in charge of designing the country’s widely-praised public procurement system.

Otherwise, Medvedev reports, on April 15, Ukraine’s President signed a new Bankruptcy Code into law. “One of the most interesting elements,” he says of the Code, which will come into effect on October 21,”is the ability of private individuals to claim insolvency, which is expected to significantly clean up the accounts of banks that have struggled to handle non-performing loans and mortgages for the past ten years.” He describes this as a positive step. “It’s not exactly a cash-in for the banks, but it will make their accounts cleaner and easier, and help many individuals to achieve the u-shape to recover from serious financial difficulties.”

He also refers to “two or three major tax changes that are being discussed.” The first is the implementation of the OECD’s G20 BEPS plan. The Ukrainian government, Medvedev reports, has already developed a BEPS-implementation bill, but it has not yet formally submitted it to the Parliament. He reports that the business community “is eager to have it submitted and voted on, because it will obviously affect their approach to various transactions.” The second issue, he says, “is the widely-discussed implementation of Distributed Capital Tax, which will replace the Corporate Income Tax, so you don’t pay corporate tax until you make a profit distribution.” According to him, it follows similar models in Estonia, Latvia, and Georgia, “and it’s been debated heavily for the past three years in Ukraine. It was approved by the Parliamentary Tax Committee not long ago, and it may be pushed for, but I doubt the Parliament will vote on such controversial things before the Parliamentary election.” The third thing, he says, “is a tax amnesty for any capital which was not properly taxed before, involving scrutiny for potential hidden capital and unpaid tax.”

Finally, Medvedev says that things are going well in a general sense, and he reports that “there is no real frustration on the legal business side.” Still, last month’s Presidential election and the upcoming parliamentary elections in October are putting a temporary chill on new projects. “The biggest problem with election years is that certain projects are put on hold,” he explains, “so we are looking forward to the political situation resolving itself, and the business situation returning to business as usual.” As a result of the elections, he says, “the concern is that the uncertainty will remain until the end of this year, and it may slow down business, so we are not expecting this to be an overactive year.”  

Ukrainian lawyer Alla Kozachenko has joined DLA Piper’s global partnership, bringing the total number of partners in the firm’s Kyiv office to eight.

“Alla Kozachenko focuses her practice on domestic and cross-border M&A transactions and corporate law,” stated DLA Piper. “With over 17 years of experience, Alla represents strategic and private equity buyers, sellers and shareholders in all stages of their operations.”

Kozachenko got her masters degree at the Institute of International Relations with the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and also has a masters degree from the Institute of Intellectual Property and Law. Prior to joining DLA Piper, she was a paralegal at Suntrade and an associate with Vasil Kisil & Partners and the Volkov & Partners law firm.

DLA Piper has advised Perion Network on its EUR 3.75 million acquisition of Septa Communications LLC, also known as Captain Growth, a Ukrainian start-up which applies AI-driven technologies to marketing. Baker McKenzie reportedly advised the sellers: Co-Founders Dmytro Plieshakov and Dmytro Bilash.

Perion is an Israel-based company listed on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that delivers advertising solutions to brands and publishers. 

The DLA Piper team was led by Partner Galyna Zagorodniuk and included Partner Illya Sverdlov, Legal Directors Anastasiya Bolkhovitinova and Natalia Kirichenko, and Associates Andrii Zhupanyn, Olena Martsynovska, Inna Koval, Lyudmyla Dzhurylyuk, and Ivan Shatov.

Integrites is providing pro bono legal advice to the Lifelover charitable foundation, which organizes leisure and recreational activities for senior citizens and provides assistance.

Lifelover was founded in 2013 by Ukrainians Garik Korogodsky and Tina Mykhaylovskaya to help senior citizens organize their leisure time, meet vital needs, and adapt to modern society.

Under the guidance of Partner Oleksandr Onishchenko, Integrites lawyers will advise the program’s participants on social security, family, housing law, and the law of inheritance, as well as providing legal support to Lifelover itself on taxation and contractual work.

Onischenko explained that “I am convinced that our cooperation will help us resolve a number of legal issues effectively, which will be our contribution to improving the lives of people of the so-called third age.”