Maria Ivanova

Defending Goldman Sachs in a number of disputes over the claims brought by a major bank and a Russian state corporation seeking recognition of the competence of Russian courts to hear the disputes (Article 248.1 of the Russian Commercial Procedure Code) arising out of the agreements on financial transactions and a cross-currency interest rate swap concluded between the parties. The claimants were sanctioned, the parties terminated the agreements on condition that the client would provide the termination amount to the claimants but, due to the prohibition on transactions with sanctioned parties, the client was unable to fulfil the obligations. Despite the arbitration clause, the opponents asked the Russian court to change the jurisdiction.

Defending Bank of New York Mellon in a dispute with a Russian bank which is subject to sanctions. The dispute is connected with a client’s transfer of US$7m from the opponent’s correspondent account to a special blocked account. Despite the fact that the dispute is under the jurisdiction of US courts, the claimant filed a claim in a Russian court under Article 248.1 of the RF CPC.

Participation in preparing an expert report for a Cypriot court on the minority shareholders’ prospects of recovering multimillion-dollar losses. The dispute arose out of alleged violations committed by a majority shareholder during the squeeze-out of shares of one of the world’s largest potash fertiliser producers. The team assisted Maxim Kulkov in preparing the report on the squeeze-out procedure of minority shareholders, which, inter alia, addressed controversial issues such as the body of proof of losses caused by the squeeze-out and the possibility of claiming in tort against the majority shareholder who had not complied with the squeeze-out procedure.

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.

Advising the client (a foreign creditor) in relation to disputes over debt collection in the amount of more than US$20m from two Russian companies (major oil traders) and their affiliates who provided a pledge. We also support disputes over inclusion of the client’s claims in the register of creditor claims of debtors which are under insolvency proceedings.

After the firm’s team successfully defended RBC against subsidiary liability, the opponents attempted to hold the debtor’s former directors liable in order to force them to provide information favourable to the opponents that could be used to revise the subsidiary liability dispute against RBC. We represent one of the debtor’s directors who was brought to subsidiary liability in order to reduce its amount and the risks of foreclosure for the client’s assets.

Representing the trustee in insolvency proceedings of a beneficiary owner of an oilseed processing plant holding. Thanks to the right litigation strategy and successful litigation support, the beneficiary’s attempts to obstruct the insolvency proceedings were stopped and creditors’ claims were repaid at the expense of the beneficiary’s property.