Dmitry Lavrov , a senior lawyer at leading Russian law firm, EPAM was a key speaker at the conference ‘Reorganization of Legal Entities: Topical Issues of Legal Security’ which was held in Moscow on 25-26 April 2006. He spoke on the issue of compulsory reorganization as a measure of antimonopoly control.

Participants at the conference included representatives of the state authorities, legal counsel from some of Russia’s largest companies and experts from some of Russia’s leading law and consulting firms.

The participants discussed the key issues concerned with the reorganization of legal entities, such as: legal control of reorganization of joint stock companies and limited liability companies, the latest changes in the legislation and its practice, the grounds and order of compulsory reorganization, antimonopoly regulation, measures for creditor and shareholder protection, succession by the reorganization of legal entities and its tax consequences, judicial defense as a part of the mix of takeover measures; and the subject of issue and translation of securities of reorganized organizations.

In his speech Dmitry Lavrov examined in detail the issues of applying Article 19 of the Competition Act, according to which the antimonopoly organs have the right to initiate the compulsory reorganization of economic entities. In his opinion, the main reason for factual negligence of this article during last 15 years was the fact that the civil legislation does not include the mechanism of compulsory reorganization.