Category: Ukraine

Sayenko Kharenko’s criminal defense team has successfully represented Reckitt Benckiser Household & Healthcare Ukraine in criminal proceedings and on the forcible return of the company’s foreign executives and potential application of special sanctions against the company.

According to Sayenko Kharenko, on January 24, 2017, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine initiated an official meeting announcing the termination of criminal proceedings against Reckitt Benckiser.

Sayenko Kharenko’s team was led by Partner Sergey Pogrebnoy and included Counsel Sergiy Smirnov and Associates Igor Voronov and Kuzma Pozychaniuk.

Redcliffe Partners has announced that Anastasia Usova has joined the firm as Counsel and Head of the Antitrust practice.

According to Redcliffe Partners, Usova focuses on complex antitrust matters, including abuse of dominance, cartels, commercial and pricing practices. She also assists clients with merger notifications in Ukraine, and has experience in the coordination of multi-jurisdictional merger filings in the CIS and the EU. In addition, Anastasia deals with unfair competition issues such as misleading advertising. She also assists international and Ukrainian companies with the development of competition law compliance policies, and holds training sessions for clients and employees on competition issues.

Before joining Redcliffe Partners, Anastasia practiced competition law for more than eight years, including two years with Sayenko Kharenko, one year with Spenser & Kauffmann, and eight months with SJ Berwin (in Brussels). She spent the last four years with Asters in Kyiv.

SDM Partners is announcing that Tetiana Gromova has joined the Ukrainian firm as Head of International and EU Law.

In addition to her experience with international public and private law, including EU law, Gromova also specializes in international corporate structuring, tax planning, and complex cross-border project administration.

Avellum has acted as Ukrainian legal counsel to Deutsche Beteiligungs AG in connection with the EUR 5.9 million investment in Dieter Braun GmbH.  Gleiss Lutz was global counsel to Deutsche Beteiligungs. 

Avellum advised Deutsche Beteiligungs AG on the due diligence of real estate, IP and employment matters, protection of employees’ rights and social benefits of the Ukrainian subsidiary of Dieter Braun. In particular, Avellum focused on compliance with labor law requirements, analysis of legal relations with private entrepreneurs, analysis of employment conditions and social benefits provided to the Ukrainian employees in the context of obligations which Deutsche Beteiligungs undertook upon the investment.

Deutsche Beteiligungs is a listed private equity company, which initiates closed-end private equity funds and invests alongside the Deutsche Beteiligungs funds in well-positioned mid-sized companies with potential for development.

Dieter Braun is a specialist and solutions provider in cable assembly and lighting for the automotive industry.

The Avellum team was led by Managing Partner Mykola Stetsenko, supported by Associates Yuriy Zaremba, Andrii Gumenchuk, and Dmytro Tkachuk.

Asters is representing Eugene Kazmin, a Ukrainian national and the owner of the KVV Group, a scrap metal holding company in Ukraine, in investment arbitration against the Republic of Latvia.

Kazmin acquired non-operational Latvian metallurgical giant Liepajas Metalurgs Joint Stock Company (“Liepajas Metalurgs”) at the end of 2014 as a result of a public tender and invested millions of dollars into the plant to resume its operations in 2015. According to Asters, he believes that, in violation of his rights, “the State of Latvia, the insolvency administrator of Liepajas Metalurgs, and the consultant to the administrator and the club of Liepajas Metalurgs’ creditor, Prudentia, failed to fulfill the promises they gave to Mr. Kazmin during the tender. As a result, the plant could no longer be operated profitably and had to be mothballed shortly after it resumed its operations. In response, the Government bankrupted the plant and is now seeking new investors for the giant, effectively expropriating Mr. Kazmin’s multimillion dollar investment.”

The arbitration is commenced under the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Latvia and the Government of Ukraine for the promotion and reciprocal protection of investments signed on July 24, 1997 and will be administered under the ICSID Convention and Arbitration Rules.

Asters is representing Eugene Kazmin together with Jones Day. The Asters arbitration team on the project consists of Managing Partner Oleksiy Didkovskiy and Counsel Yaroslav Petrov.

Vasil Kisil and Partners has successfully represented Lviv Polytechnic National University as a third party in a complex dispute involving an insolvent bank before the Supreme Court of Ukraine.

According to VKP, “the dispute related to a recognition of the legal relationship between a bank and another company as terminated because of the offset of counter claims.”

Lviv Polytechnic National University, one of two other entities, transferred its right to claim UAH 54 million from the bank to the unidentified company that was his bank’s debtor under a loan agreement in an amount exceeding UAH 427 million. After receiving notification from a debtor regarding the offset of counter claims, the bank argued that the obligations of the debtor under the loan agreement had not been fulfilled at the time and, thus, it did not recognize the offset of counter claims. The bank also challenged the offset of counterclaims as it had allegedly been used after temporary administration was introduced to the bank by the National Bank of Ukraine.

According to VKP, “the Supreme Court of Ukraine did not, however, accept the bank’s arguments and dismissed the application on review of the decision of the cassation court.”

The VKP team was led by Managing Partner Andriy Stelmashchuk, working together with Associate Maksym Maksymov.

The Gestors law firm has signed an agreement with GAO Chernomorneftegaz “on legal services regarding the return of the ship Titan-2.”

The ship ran aground in Mexico.

Chornomornaftogaz is an oil and gas company located in Simferopol, Crimea. It is legally a subsidiary of Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz.

Other law firms involved include Britain’s Morgan Has Solicitors, Sweden’s Setterwalls, and Mexico’s Garza Tello & Asociados.

No other information was provided.

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Sayenko Kharenko has announced that it acted as Ukrainian legal counsel to J.P. Morgan Securities plc and ING Bank N.V., London Branch, joint lead managers of the debut USD 500 million Eurobond issue by Kernel Holdings S.A. 

As reported by CEE Legal Matters on January 30, Latham & Watkins was lead counsel to the joint lead managers on the issuance, and Avellum advised Kernel Holdings on Ukrainian aspects (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on February 3, 2017). As reported earlier, the bond pays interest at a rate of 8.75 per cent p.a. and matures on 31 January 2022. The notes are expected to be rated B+ by Fitch, and B by S&P, two and one notches above the Ukrainian sovereign respectively. 

The Sayenko Kharenko team was led by Partner Nazar Chernyavsky and included Senior Associate Iryna Bakina, and Associates Olga Kyriusha, Orest Matviychuk and Taras Shyb. Chernyavsky commented: “We are proud to advise on this landmark transaction, which marks the first international corporate bond issuance from Ukraine since 2013. We hope this issuance will pave the way for a return of the Ukrainian issuers to the international capital markets.”

Avellum has acted as Ukrainian legal counsel to longstanding client Kernel Holding S.A. in connection with an offering of its USD 500 million 8.75% guaranteed notes due 2022. The notes are expected to be rated B+ by Fitch and B by S&P, two notches and one notch above the Ukrainian sovereign respectively.

Avellum describes the transaction as remarkable, “since it is the Kernel’s debut eurobond issue and the first successful corporate eurobond offering from Ukraine since 2013.”

Kernel is a Ukraine-based diversified agribusiness company in the Black Sea region with a share listing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. It is also an exporter of, among other products, sunflower oil and grains.

The Avellum team included Partner Glib Bondar, Counsel Igor Lozenko, Senior Associate Vadim Medvedev, and Associates Anna Melnychuk, Pavlo Shevchenko, Yuriy Zaremba, Anastasiya Voronova, and Orest Franchuk. 

Aequo has advised the Ukrainian subsidiary of Sberbank of Russia on its restructuring of a multi-million loan facility granted to the Smila Electromechanical Plant, one of the largest Ukrainian producers of electric equipment for railway machines, large-capacity vehicles, municipal passenger electric transport, port facilities, and industrial lifting devices.

The Aequo team was supervised by Partner Yulia Kyrpa, who said: “It was extremely satisfying for us to draw on our knowledge to guide the creditor throughout the restructuring process, as well as to demonstrate our expertise in the debt restructuring field, which is likely to remain the hottest area in 2017.” Kyrpa was supported by Of Counsel Maryna Fedorenko and Senior Associate Denys Kulgavyi.