St.Petersburg, June 8, 2008 – Dimitry Afanasiev, Chairman of EPAM, a leading Russian law firm, spoke at the Rule of Law conference at the ST. PETERSBURG INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC FORUM today where he presented the road map for anti-corruption and legal reform. This is the first time that a representative of the Russian legal business was invited to share a vision and specific proposals on anti-corruption policy and judicial reform in Russia at the country's main economic and government conference, the St. Petersburg Forum. Russian national law firms have a keen interest in rooting our corruption in the courts because they are investing in highly trained lawyers whose skills may be made irrelevant if corruption is allowed to rule the legal process.

"The Russian state has made great progress in developing independent courts at the highest level and the Russian legal community needs to help the state to bring it all down nationwide to each element of the court system. The courts are where the buck stops so we need to start with the court system."- Afanasiev said.

"Russian business has been pushed offshore by two major reasons: impractical laws and inefficient courts. We should adopt the most practical legal elements from the European and American systems and we should focus on judicial reform based on the three principles: 1) promote prestige of being a judge and provide adequate pay for judges; 2) ensure the inevitability, not severity of punishment; 3) bring in a fresh generation of personnel."

"The Russian High Arbitrazh Court instills confidence in the legal community that the reform is not just a lip service. Most notable in this regard is the recent decision of the highest court prohibiting tax authorities from using article 169 of the Civil Code to confiscate business assets and essentially engage in redistribution of property that way."

Among speakers at the Rule of Law Panel were Anton Ivanov, Chairman of the High Arbitrage Court of the Russian Federation, Elena Mizulina of the Russian State Duma, Anders Blum, Executive Director of the Finnish Business Association, Valery Fadeev, Editor-in-Chief, Expert magazine General Director, ZAO Media Holding Expert, Grigory Tomchin, President of the All-Russia Association of privatized and private enterprises (employers), leading experts from the government and international business. The session was moderated by Vladimir Pligin, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Constitutional Law.

More than 5,000 delegates attended ST. PETERSBURG INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC FORUM this year, including the President of Russia Dimitry Medvedev, Russian and foreign government officials, leading businessmen, economists and analysts from all over the world.

Contact person:
Olga Frolova
+7 926 217 70 89
Olga_Frolova@epam.ru