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Gestors has acted as legal advisor to the Public Joint-Stock Company State Joint-Stock Company Chernomornaftogaz towards the return of the crane vessel Titan-2.

The Titan-2 is designed for the installation, dismantling, and service of floating drilling platforms. The vessel had been arrested by Mexican financial authorities following the bankruptcy of its charterer company and the launch of the respective investigation. The arrest of the Titan-2 vessel has now been removed by the Financial Prosecutor’s Office of Mexico, with the Government of Ukraine to decide upon its future use. 

Gestors argues that this is particularly important since it represents a first instance in which an official body of a third country has formally recognized the ownership of Chernomornaftogaz over its assets following the company’s re-registration in Kyiv in 2014 as a result of the occupation of the Crimea peninsula by the Russian Federation. 

Partner Andriy Tsvyetkov led the Gestors team working on the project. The team relied on external Swedish, British, and Mexican specialists: Partner Mathias Winge of Setterwals, Solicitor Ali Has of Morgan Has Solicitors, and Attorney-at-Law Fernando Escamilla Llano from Garza Tello & Asociados respectively. 

Image Source: maritime-executive.com

The Esin Attorney Partnership (EAP) — member firm of Baker & McKenzie International — has advised Petgas on the transfer of its bottled liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and autogas businesses to Ipragaz. The latter was assisted by BASEAK — the Turkish arm of Dentons. The deal was signed on October 20, 2015 and it closed on January 7, 2016.

EAP Partner Duygu Turgut, commented: “The deal was challenging due to the highly regulated nature of the autogas industry, and the negotiation and transaction phases lasted for more than a year. We are pleased to have advised on this influential deal in Turkey’s LPG industry. We particularly enjoyed working on this deal thanks to the contribution and leadership of Sahin Cihangir Akgul, Petgaz’s General Counsel.” 

From EAP, Turgut was supported by Associates Ali Selim Demirel, Orcun Solak, Zeynep Pinar Erdem, and Gokhan Akcaalan. 

The BASEAK team consisted of Partner Ozgur Akman, Counsel Tulu Harsa, and Associates Umut Sensu and Onur Yorgun.

Image Source: ipragaz.com.tr

Sorainen is advising Fortum on the sale of its 51.4% shareholding in the Eesti Gaas company to Trilini Energy. The buyer is advised by Raidla Ellex.

Estonian Eesti Gaas focuses on distribution and sales of natural gas. The group of companies consists of EG Ehitus that focuses on design and construction of gas pipelines and facilities, and Gaasivorgud that provides distribution services. Eesti Gaas employs 205 persons and has 1,570 free consumers and 41,160 home consumers.

With the transaction for the 51% expected to finalize in the first half of 2016, Trilini Energy has also made purchase offers to Gazprom that owns 37% of Eesti Gaas and to Itera Latvija that owns 10% of Eesti Gaas. Minority shareholders own 1.57% of Eesti Gaas in total. 

The Sorainen team advising Fortum consists of Partner Toomas Prangli, Special Counsel Kadri Kallas, and Associate Triin Tigane.

On the buyer side, it was Raidla Ellex Counsel Martin Kaerdi working on the deal. 

Sadkowski & Partners has successfully represented 5 families who own houses neighbouring the Auchan shopping center in Piaseczno, Poland in a dispute with Auchan, which intended to enlarge the shopping center to almost twice its present size to over 80 thousand square meters and construct underground car parks for 3300 automobiles, a new petrol station, and car wash.

According to Sadkowski & Partners, “the proceedings pertained to the environmental protection conditions that must be met by the object. On 9 February 2016, the Supreme Administrative Court allowed the cassation appeal filed by our law firm and set aside the judgment of the lower instance court along with the administrative decisions determining environmental conditions. The Court accepted out argumentation that the environmental report submitted by the investor on the basis of which the administrative body issued the decision had been incomplete and [thus] that the decision itself was defective.”

The firm reports that “this means that the entire environmental proceedings are going to be held anew. The investor will have to complement the report, consultations with other administrative bodies must be held, the complemented report will have to be made accessible to the residents, who are going to gain the possibility to actively participate in the entire procedure.”

Sadkowski & Partners claims that the judgment will delay the planned expansion for several years.

On February 18th, 2016 Turkey finally ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism Agreement (“Convention”), almost 10 years after its signature of the Convention on March 2007.

So far the ratification of the Convention is the latest step taken among Turkey’s efforts to adapt its domestic legislation to the international anti-money laundering system. Turkey’s such efforts had started in 2012, when the Financial Action Taskforce (“FATF”) had gray listed Turkey due to its lack of compliance with international standards. Since then, Turkey has taken a plethora of legislative steps and on October 2014 FATF declared that Turkey would no longer be subject to the monitoring process. However, Turkey’s non-ratification of the Convention had still remained an element of criticism.   

The Convention which entered into force on May 2008, remains the first international convention to regulate both anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism and therefore, is the first international instrument to provide a holistic approach to combatting the both. The Convention recognizes that swift access to the relevant financial information would be the key in preventing money laundering and financing of terrorism. To that end, the Convention provides for an international judicial system of cooperation, establishment of intelligence units and the obligation to assist the authorities in need.

According to the Convention, the states parties are obliged to establish financial intelligence units (“FIU”) which exchange, spontaneously or on request, any accessible information that may be relevant to the processing or analysis of information. The states parties are obliged to ensure that FIUs’ status under domestic legislation (either administrative, law enforcement or judicial authority) does not affect the discharge of their function. Turkey has appointed the Financial Crime Investigation Board as its FIU, to deal with asset freezing requests made by foreign countries and requests made by Turkey to other countries. 

In line with Turkey’s efforts to comply with FATF recommendations, Article 13 of the Convention provides that states parties shall consider applicable international standards and FATF recommendations of while taking necessary measures to prevent money laundering. 

In addition to the above, the requirements set by the Convention are not just met through the establishment of an asset freeze and international cooperation system. According to Article 8 of the Convention, states parties shall also ensure that the affected parties shall have effective legal remedies, in order to preserve their rights in the face of such extreme measures.  

(First published in Lexology on February 24, 2016)

By Gonenç Gurkaynak, Managing Partner, and Olgu Kama, Partner, ELIG, Attorneys-at-Law

Tria Robit has successfully represented the JSC Aldaris brewery in a dispute with JSC Cesu Alus over the “Bruza Legenda” trademark.

In February 2015, Cesu Alus filled a lawsuit against Tria Robit client in order to invalidate the registration of the “Bruza Legenda” (reg. No. M 68 498), registered by Aldaris, on the basis of their earlier registered trademark “Bruza.”

The applicant argued that the two marks are confusingly similar and there is a likelihood of confusion, noting that Cesu Alus as the owner of the earlier trademark is the only one entitled to use the designation “Bruza.” Additionally, the claimant argued that “in view of considerable financial and marketing investments in creation, development and promotion of the ‘Bruza’ brand, the defendant knowingly acted in bad faith when applying for the registration and use of the mark ‘Bruza Legenda’ and such [an] action, among others, must be regarded as unfair competition,” explained a statement of Tria Robit. 

Aldaris filed a counterclaim against Cesu Alus towards the invalidation of the registration of the trademark “Bruza” on the grounds that, among others, its sign lacks distinctive character being a clearly descriptive term of general nature (the term “bruza” means a „brewery” in old-fashioned Latvian language), and, therefore, registered a trademark contrary to the rules set by the Law on Trademarks. 

The Riga City Vidzeme District Court decided to reject in full the claim filed by Cesu Alus and to satisfy the counterclaim filed by Aldaris in a judgement on December 10, 2015.

Trademark Attorney and Senior Lawyer Bronislavs Baltrumovics of Tria Robit represented Aldaris in the Dispute.

Baker & McKenzie has advised Cargill on an agreement with MV Cargo for the latter to construct a new port terminal in Yuzhni, Ukraine. MV Cargo was assisted by CMS on the deal.

The investment will amount to around USD 100 million and the resulting terminal will allow for the handling of large vessels, delivering Ukrainian grain to markets all over the world. Construction of the terminal will begin on 27 February 2016 and is expected to be completed by the spring of 2018.

Olyana Gordiyenko, Partner at Baker & McKenzie, commented on the transaction: “We are honored to support Cargill on one of its milestone investments into the Ukrainian agricultural sector, and to contribute to the upgrade of Ukraine’s port infrastructure. We have been working towards this moment for quite some time and are committed to supporting the investment through to ribbon cutting.”

The Baker & McKenzie team was led by London-based Partner Nick O’Donnell and Kyiv-based Partner Olyana Gordiyenko, with key input from Senior Associate Olena Kuchynska and from Nadiia Filozop.

The CMS team was led by Partner and Head of Corporate/M&A practice at Kyiv office, Graham Conlon and Senior Associate Tetyana Dovgan, working together with Lawyers Vitalii Mainarovych, Nataliya Kushniruk, and Nataliya Nakonechna.

Sorainen Lithuania has supported FinBee on structuring a funds handling procedure and in preparing the necessary documentation for the company to become a financial intermediary to Citadele Bank.

As a result, Finbee became the first peer-to-peer lending platform operator in Lithuania directly using a bank deposit account for fund handling services. According to a Sorainen statement, the “new funds handling model will increase security for P2P investors and ensure the quality of services provided by FinBee. The funds handling model applied by FinBee meets the most commonly known funds handling structures in the EU and the US.”

The Sorainen team that structured the money handling procedure, developed the necessary documents and communicated with Citadele Bank was led by Partner Tomas Kontautas and Associate Alturas Asakavicius. 

BSWW Legal & Tax has advised Kredyt Inkaso S.A. on the recent issue of a series Z bonds with a face value of PLN 40 million.

Kredyt Inkaso is a company managing debt portfolios, focusing on purchasing large blocks of debt which the original creditors found to be difficult to recover and claiming the payment thereof on its own behalf. It cooperates with major banks, insurance companies, and telecommunication services and iintends to use the funds raised towards running its current operations. The offering entity of the issuance was NWAI Dom Maklerski.

Commenting on the matter, Managing Partner Piotr Smoluch said: “We are very glad that Kredyt Inkaso and the offering entity appreciated our team for the many years of experience in dealing with securities issue and decided to entrust BSWW Legal & Tax with the task of assisting in the transaction.”

Smoluch was supported by Advocate Matylda Juzala on the project. 

Aleinikov & Partners has become the legal advisor on tax issues to the Virtus.pro cybersport club.

The Virtus.pro club brings together both professional competitive gaming teams and a news site with regular streams and coverage of the most important eSports events. The club itself has managed to collect over 100 gold, 170 silver and 220 bronze medals in more than 10 competitive gaming events. Among others, Belarusian Artyom Barshak – one of the most promising gamers of Dota 2 (one of the games with the highest eSports’ awards values) – is part of the Virtus.pro club.  As a result, it drew the attention of entrepreneur Alisher Usmanov, whose fund, USM Holdings, invested USD 100 million in the club.

Form Aleinikov & Partners, the team working on the project includes Partner Dmitry Matveev and Associate Viktoria Tarasenko.