Ivan Kupriyanov

Successfully defending a Russian agricultural enterprise in a dispute initiated by a Polish manufacturer of agricultural equipment. The claimant applied to the Russian court to recover more than RUB 200m from the client under equipment supply contracts, ignoring the arbitration clause providing for consideration of disputes in the LCIA. We succeeded in leaving the opponent’s claim without consideration, proving to the court that the application of the provisions of Article 248.1 of the CPC RF is permissible only in the interests of Russian or related entities and persons, and that there are no obstacles to Russian companies accessing justice in foreign arbitrations, including in the LCIA.

Advising a major Swedish steel sales company in connection with the termination of its operations in Russia. The client needed to transfer assets owned by a Russian subsidiary to a foreign jurisdiction. The matter is complicated by sanctions that do not allow direct distribution of assets of a Russian liquidated entity in favour of a foreign client. We prepared an opinion for the client, proposing various options for structuring transactions for the transfer of assets taking into account the sanctions regulation in order to mitigate the client’s potential losses of approximately US$40m.