Valeriya Shaykina

Defending a major U.S. bank in a number of disputes with Russian companies arising out of the blocking of the opponents’ money transfers with a total amount of over $1.5m caused by sanctions. Despite the disputes falling under the jurisdiction of US courts, the claimants applied to Russian courts on the basis of Article 248.1 of the RF Commercial Procedural Code.

Representing a French financial conglomerate in a case concerning the blocking of coupon income on credit notes for which it is the issuer. The client was unable to make payments on credit notes totaling almost $20m because, among other things, there was a sanctioned entity in the chain of depositories. The client made a payment on the credit notes to Euroclear and then received a claim for recovery of these payments, which created the risk of double collection from the client.

Defending Commerzbank in disputes against a large Russian bank and other companies (the total amount of claims is more than $100m). The opponents commenced disputes in connection with the freezing of their funds in accounts opened with a depository whose funds were in turn frozen in a German bank due to European sanctions. The recovery from foreign counterparties of the depository is an innovation for Russian courts, and these disputes are establishing the practice similar cases. The unprecedented complexity of the case is confirmed by the fact that the Court of Appeal has already held six hearings.

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.