Category: Ukraine

Asters has announced that Counsel Svitlana Chepurna and Senior Associates Yevgen Kravtsov, Yevgen Porada, Andriy Pozhidayev, and Kostyantyn Solyar have all been promoted to Partner at the firm.  

In addition, Senior Associates Gabriel Aslanyan and Oleksiy Demyanenko have been promoted to Counsel. The promotions are effective as of February 28, 2014, and bring the firm’s total up to 14 Partners and 6 Counsels.

Asters’ Managing Partner Oleksiy Didkovskiy released a statement regarding the promotions: “Asters’ continued commitment to retaining and promoting its best human asset is evident in this 2014 promotion class. The promoted lawyers represent Asters’ quality, breadth, and depth and demonstrate our ongoing investment in business and the firm’s strategic course on incentivizing younger legal talent. This course led recently to a number of other decisions directed at a more efficient partnership organization. We congratulate all newly promoted lawyers and wish them every success in the future.”

Partner Armen Khachaturyan added: “These promotions are based on high merits of the new partners and counsels who went a long way from the firm’s start-ups to professional maturity. We look forward to having them continuing provision of excellent legal service to the firm’s clients, developing its business, enhancing strategy and effective solutions. As a result the firm got an exemplary professional leadership matching Asters’ leading position in the market.”

Integrites has successfully represented Galika AG, the world’s largest exporter of metalworking equipment, in litigation against Ukrainian state authorities.

Galika AG, a Swiss company supplying high-tech equipment for metalworking as well as providing technical and engineering consulting, disputed special sanctions that the Ukrainian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and the Ukrainian State Tax Service (STS) had imposed on it. The Integrites team, led by Senior Lawyer Alexei Kominartsy, working under the direction of Dispute Resolution Partner Denys Kytsenko, succeeded in having the sanctions withdrawn, allowing the company to resume its export-import operations in Ukraine.

Integrites has announced that it has agreed to help the Elf group attract commercial financing.  

Elf is one of the largest manufacturers of cosmetics and household products in Ukraine. Integrites announced that its lawyers will offer “comprehensive legal support” to Elf, including post-export financing and structuring the transaction in coordination with international export credit agencies. Integrites will also provide an analysis of the legal framework, as well as an assessment of potential risks and their hedging instruments in attracting trade finance products for delivery to Ukraine. The Integrites team will be led by Senior Partner Vyacheslav Korchev.

Svitlana Musienko, Partner and Head of Tax at DLA Piper in Ukraine, has been re-elected to the board of the International Fiscal Association in Ukraine (IFA) for the third time. 

Board members are elected by members of the association and will hold their positions until 2015.

Working on a voluntary basis for the IFA, the board is expected to contribute to a constructive dialogue between international business representatives and the Ukrainian tax and judicial authorities, and to work to establish the further implementation of international standards in Ukraine’s tax field (including OECD Commentary, Transfer Pricing Guidelines, concepts developed by ECJ and tax courts in other jurisdictions). 

To further these ends, the board members of the IFA will conduct seminars and meetings with the Ministry of Revenues and Duties, draft new legislative acts, and represent the IFA at an international level.

Transfer pricing rules, the beneficial ownership concept introduced by the Tax Code of Ukraine, and a permanent establishment of tax status are all expected to be hot topics this year, according to Musienko, who also expects the reduction of discriminatory provisions towards non-residents in the Tax Code of Ukraine to be a frequent focus.

Musienko will be joined on the IFA board for 2014-2015 by Svetlana Bilyk (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Irina Marushko (Lavrynovich & Partners), and Ruslan Vakhitov (Baker Tilly). Alexander Buryak (PricewaterhouseCoopers) became the Treasurer of the Association, and Elena Voznyuk (OMP Law Offices) became its President.

Asters has acted as local counsel to VTG Aktiengesellschaft on its formation of a European rail logistics joint venture with international logistics provider Kuhne + Nagel in Ukraine.

The two companies combined their rail logistics activities on January 1, 2014, to form pan-European VTG Rail Logistics. VTG Aktiengesellschaft holds a majority stake in the joint venture, which operates in 12 countries, from Northern Europe to the Bosporus and from Western Europe to Russia.

VTG Aktiengesellschaft is one of Europe’s leading train car hire and rail logistics companies with a fleet of some 52,700 cars. VTG has three interlinked divisions — Railcar, Rail Logistics, and Tank Container Logistics — and specializes in the transport of liquid and sensitive goods from the chemical, petroleum, automotive, paper, and agricultural industries.

Asters’ team working on the project was led by Senior Partner Armen Khachaturyan, and included Senior Associate Yevgen Kravtsov and Associate Oleh Furmanchuk.

Lavrynovych & Partners has announced that it has agreed to serve as legal partner to the Ukrainian “Heart to Heart” Charitable Foundation.

According to the firm’s announcement, the “Heart to Heart” foundation helps sick children by fundraising through volunteers in annual three-week campaigns. Each year the topic of a charitable campaign is an important social problem that requires financing. The 2014 theme is “I want to see life”, which aims at combating heterotopia in children — a rare neurological disorder caused by clumps of grey matter being located in the wrong part of the brain — by raising funds to purchase special diagnostic equipment across Ukraine.

Clifford Chance has announced that it has temporarily closed its Kiev office “due to the current situation.”  

In the same announcement, however, the firm emphasizes that its team “is continuing to support clients and remains available through landlines, mobile numbers, and email addresses.” The firm did not state when it planned to reopen the office, only that they are “continu[ing] to keep the situation under review and will re-open the office as soon as appropriate.”

Ilyashev & Partners has successfully represented NetCracker in the Ukrainian appellate courts.

In the initial trial, the Social Protection Fund for People with Disabilities successfully sued TOV NetCracker in two actions, winning over UAH 5 million in sanctions for NetCracker’s alleged failure to meet the mandatory quota for the employment of people with disabilities. The first and second appellate courts, however, reversed the trial court’s decision, finding that evidence showed that NetCracker was in fact in good standing with reporting requirements and had voluntarily recruited persons with disabilities for current and upcoming vacancies.

Ilyashev & Partners Partner Maksym Kopeychykov led the case, and said that even with a vast number of similar cases being heard by administrative courts, persuading the judges was quite challenging. “Luckily, in reaching its decision the Higher Administrative Court made a serious study into the case and recognized that the trial court had misapplied the substantive law.”

Ilyashev & Partners has successfully defended Vitmark-Ukraine in the Ukrainian Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine against charges of an illegal decrease of negative profit tax by the tax authorities.

Ilyashev & Partners Partner Maksym Kopeychykov, legal counsel in the case, noted that consideration by the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine of the cassation appeal proves that it is possible to reach justice in Ukraine even in cases against the tax authorities, if the legal position is compelling, and the taxpayer carries out business activities in compliance with the law. “I have always believed that colleagues speaking of ‘impossibility of dealing with the state due to the pressure of public agencies on the courts’ are somewhat disingenuous as experience has proven the opposite.”

Vitmark-Ukraine is the largest Ukrainian producer of juices, nectars, juice-based and soft drinks, baby food, puree and concentrated semi-finished products. The company was founded in 1994.

Integrites has successfully defended the interests of Philip Morris Ukraine (the largest producer of tobacco products in Ukraine) in a dispute against the Specialized State Tax Inspectorate in Kharkov.

Philip Morris Ukraine had disputed a penalty imposed by the Tax Inspectorate, and the Kharkiv District Administrative Court completely overturned the decision of the tax authority. Philip Morris Ukraine was represented in the matter by Integrites Counsel Denis Kitsenko and Senior Partner Vyacheslav Korchev.