Category: Ukraine

Sayenko Kharenko has announced its participation in advising on the April 16, 2014 binding agreement pursuant to which Hapag-Lloyd will take over the container division of Compania Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV).

As reported last month, the resulting company will be the fourth largest containership operator in the world, behind Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping, and CMA CGM. The new group will have a fleet of some 200 ships and carry an estimated 7.5 million TEU a year (the dimensions of one TEU (which stands for Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit) are equal to that of a standard shipping container, 20 feet long, and 8 feet tall). The headquarters will remain in Hamburg — with a strong regional office in Chile.  

CSAV generated approximately USD 3.4 billion in sales in the 2012 financial year, and at the moment has more than 5,000 employees and 54 container ships. The shipping company, founded in 1872, is headquartered in Valparaiso and Santiago de Chile.

As reported extensively in April, the merged company will have some 200 vessels and an annual turnover of EUR 9 billion. CSAV, Hapag-Lloyd, and its largest shareholders HGV Hamburger Gesellschaft fur Vermogens- und Beteiligungsmanagement (held by the City of Hamburg), and Kuhne Maritime agreed that CSAV will contribute its entire container business to Hapag-Lloyd, in exchange receiving a 30% stake in the combined entity. Once the transaction has been consummated a capital increase of EUR 370 million will be carried out, with Kuhne Maritime contributing EUR 111 million and CSAV EUR 259 million. This will then increase CSAV’s share of Hapag-Lloyd to 34%. A second capital increase of EUR 370 million will be linked to Hapag-Lloyd’s planned stock exchange listing, according to a statement released by the two companies. 

The deal will close later this year upon approval by various regulatory authorities. 

Sayenko Kharenko provided due diligence and general advice on Ukrainian law matters. The firm’s team for the transaction was led by Partner Vladimir Sayenko, and included Counsel Leonid Antonenko and Associate Oleksandr Bevz. As reported at the time, Linklaters advised CSAV, and the Gleiss Lutz team advising Hapag-Lloyd included Partners Andreas Rittstieg, Fred Wendt, and Johann Wagner, and lawyers Urszula Nartowska, Christian Mencke, and Christian Zimmermann.  

Michael Kharenko, the co-Managing Partner at Sayenko Kharenko, was named one of Ukraine’s best 100 “top managers” by the Ekonomika Publishing House in its April issue.

According to a statement released by the firm, “the ranking has once again demonstrated that the national law firms dominated on Ukrainian legal market (out of four partners listed in the ranking, no one was from the international law firm).

Kharenko was named one of the top four managers in Ukraine’s legal market and listed among 100 best top managers nation-wide, alongside the CEOs of DTEK, 1+1, Kyivstar, Galnaftogaz, Zaporozhstal, MHP, Roshen, and other captains of industry. In both 2012 and 2013 Sayenko was named the No.1 top manager of Ukraine’s legal market.

This is the eighteenth year that Ekonomika Publishing has released its ranking of the 100 “best” business leaders in various industry sectors, including legal services. In 2014, the publication’s experts assessed the efficiency of the CEOs of Ukraine’s leading companies according to four criteria: personal qualities, the frequency of mentions in the media, online voting, and style.

On April 23, 2014, the Students League of the Ukrainian Bar Association hosted the award ceremony celebrating finalists and winners of the Fourth Scholarship Contest, traditionally initiated and supported by the Vasil Kisil & Partners Law Firm. 

55 students from 17 universities participated in the scholarship competition, which focused this year on issues related to intellectual property rights. The judges panel included VKP Partners Vasil Kisil, Oleg Makarov, Oleksandr Mamunya, Senior Associate Tetyana Kudrytska, and Leading Associate Andrey Nikolayenko. 

The finalists in the 2014 competition were:

• Vasiliy Kundrik, Oleg Stoev – the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev; 
• Glib Demich, Daniel Parsae – the Yaroslav Mudriy National Law Academy of Ukraine; 
• Dmitri Simbirev – the National University of Kiev Mohyla Academy; 
• Kristina Nikerui – Ivan Franko National University of L’viv; 
• Vladimir Chaban – Vasyl Stefanyk Subcarpathian National University

The winners of the Fourth Scholarship Contest were: 

• 1st place: Nikita Dahovsky from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev for his paper on “Trends in the development of intellectual property rights in Ukraine and around the world: what shall the next decade bring?”; 
• 2nd place: Maria Zaharchenko from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev for her paper on “Specialized court to hear IP cases in Ukraine: a mistake or a necessity?”; 
• 3rd place: Olexandr Melnik from the National Taras Shevchenko University for his paper on “Specialized court to hear IP cases in Ukraine: a mistake or a necessity?”. 

Daria Sedyh, the organizer of the competition and Head of Legal Seminars, Conferences and Competitions Division of the UBA Students League, noted that “every year the Scholarship competition initiated by Vasil Kisil & Partners becomes more popular among students, because participation in such contests is a good start for young legal practitioners, helping them make the right choice regarding their specialization and embark on a successful career path.”

In a follow-up to a story reported by CEE Legal Matters on April 23, Baker & McKenzie announced that it advised the Alfa group on its EUR 202.5 million acquisition of the Ukrainian assets of the Bank of Cyprus, including its Ukrainian subsidiary (PJSC Bank of Cyprus), its Ukrainian loan portfolio, and certain loans of the former Laiki Bank (Cyprus).  

Alfa Bank is a Ukrainian universal commercial bank headquartered in Kiev. According to the official National Bank of Ukraine statistics, as of January 1, 2014, the Bank of Cyprus was the 67th largest bank in Ukraine in terms of total assets among the 180 commercial banks registered in the country. The bank had 42 branches, which provided services to retail and corporate customers, with 71 percent of the loan portfolio consisting of corporate customers.

Baker & McKenzie Partner Olyana Gordiyenko was pleased with the deal: “We are proud to be part of the client’s biggest acquisition in Ukraine so far and we are glad that the deal has been a good bargain for the client. The complex nature of this acquisition demanded sophisticated structuring with differing documentation and process required for different parts of the transaction.”  

The Baker & McKenzie team also included Zoryana Matviychuk and other aAssociates from the Kiev office, Partners James Richards and Simon Morgan from Moscow, and Senior Associate Ron Kirschner in London.

Asters has acted as Ukrainian counsel to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on secured lending of USD 40 million to the New Europe Property Fund, managed by NCH Capital.

   

Sir Suma Chakrabarti, President of EBRD during the press conference in Ukraine in February 5, 2013 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The NCH New Europe Property Fund was created in 2005 and fully invested its capital into real estate and agricultural business in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The EBRD was established in 1991 and is the largest financial investor in Central Europe, Central Asia, and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. It is owned by 64 countries, the European Union, and the European Investment Bank.

Aster’s announced that the financing will be used to provide capital for the Fund’s agricultural operations in Ukraine. The beneficiaries of the loan are expected to be 30 Ukrainian agricultural enterprises. The project is aimed at improving land management and farming techniques to increase yields. The Asters team advising on the project consisted of Partner Iryna Pokanay, Counsel Gabriel Aslanian, and Associates Yulia Spolitak and Inna Bondarenko.

Photo Credits: Mark III Photonics / Shutterstock.com

Chadbourne & Parke has represented the Bank of Cyprus Public Company on the sale of its Ukrainian subsidiary, PJSC Bank of Cyprus (and associated debt), to Alfa Group, Russia’s largest privately owned banking group, for  EUR 202.5 million (USD 280 million).

The transaction was signed on February 5, 2014, and closed on April 17, 2014. Partner Charez Golvala, who led the Chadbourne team, said: “We are delighted to have advised Bank of Cyprus all the way through the sale process and to have helped bring the deal to a successful completion last week.”

The Chadbourne team working on the deal included Charez Golvala, Alexandra Neovius, Nonna Crane, Tetyana Dovgan, Sergiy Onishchenko, Oleksandra Soloviova, Anna Putintseva, Julia Dmitrieva, Olga Vorozhbyt, Anna Iakubenko, Henry Andreae, Peter Weiland, Kevin Atkins, Adam Mycyk, Paul White, Mykola Heletiy and Vitalii Mainarovich from Chadbourne’s London and Kyiv offices.

Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners Ukrainian Partner Oleksii Reznikov has been appointed Acting President of the Ukrainian Bar Association as of April 11, 2014.

Reznikov takes over all President’s duties and responsibilities set forth in the Company’s Charter, including representation of the UBA before state authorities, organizations, and third persons.

Reznikov heads the EPAM Litigation Practice in Ukraine, and has additional experience in the privatization and securities, and protection from hostile takeovers (including corporate raids). He specializes in the resolution of disputes with tax, customs and other state authorities. His experience includes representing clients in the Supreme Court of Ukraine, the Supreme Economic Court, the Higher Specialized Court, and the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian office of Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners is sponsoring the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court team from the Institute of International Relations at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev (IIRTSNU) in the upcoming White & Case International Rounds of the 2014 competition.

The International Rounds will be held on April 6-12 2014, at the Capitol Hilton Hotel, in Washington, D.C.

The Ukrainian National Round took place on February 14-16, 2014, at the Higher Commercial Court of Ukraine. In the final round, the team from the IIRTSNU won, in the process qualifying to represent Ukraine in the prestigious International Rounds.

This year will be the 55th year of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. Jessup is the world’s largest moot court competition, with participants from over 600 law schools in more than 90 countries. The Competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. One team is allowed to participate from every eligible school. Teams prepare oral and written pleadings arguing both the applicant and respondent positions of the case. Thousands of law students from around the world participate on the assigned problem, which for 2014 concerns the conflict between maritime development and conservation, criminal jurisdiction, and maritime salvage rights. The winning team will be awarded the White & Case Jessup Cup.

Ukraine’s Legal Counsel Ltd. law firm has announced that it has hired Real Estate lawyer Victoria Papenkova as Partner.

Victoria is expected to enhance the firm’s practices in land law and land relations, construction, and infrastructure. She previously worked for four and a half years with CMS Cameron McKenna, for five years with the American Chamber of Commerce, and for one and a half years as a Senior Associate with CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz, all in Kiev.

Vasil Kisil & Partners has acted as legal advisor to the Marubeni Corporation, one of Japan’s major integrated conglomerates, on trade finance matters.

VKP’s advice on Ukrainian law matters related to elaboration of FCR-based trade finance solutions and the establishment of security under a grains supply contract with a Ukrainian leading grain supplier. In addition to FCR instruments the scope of work also included drafting and negotiating the security agreement (i.e. pledge over goods in turnover) and forwarding agreement.

The transaction was supported by VKP Associate Denys Kulgavyi, working under the supervision of VKP Partner Yulia Kyrpa.