On March 28 and April 4, 2014 EPAM and NPP Russian Corporate Counsel Association held a two-day workshop where the Firm’s leading litigation experts addressed the recent trends and the specificities of dispute resolution in various fields, and provided guidelines on how to avoid disputable situations.
On the workshop’s first day, Alexandra Nesterenko, the RCCA President, made a welcome speech and noted how important it was to improve knowledge among the corporate counsel in order to prevent conflicts and decrease the number of court actions.
The Firm’s Partner Ivan Smirnov acting as the moderator, opened the meeting with his report entitled “2013 Results: Main Precedent-Setting Cases at the Russian Supreme Arbitrazh Court, trends and key risks for the business community». Ivan reviewed the main precedent-setting cases over the last year and outlined the 2014 key trends and the forecasts. The audience was most interested by and had a heated discussion on the accelerate development of the bankruptcy institution.
Then, Partner Denis Arkhipov presented a report on the efficient legal remedies for protection of business reputation, on the latest trends in recovery of damaged reputations, as well as on the main litigation issues in the field and the latest most illustrative examples from the practice.
The attendees of the workshop showed a particular interest to the issues top-management responsibility addressed by the Firm’s Partner Valery Eremenko in his report. Valery reviewed the recent judicial practice and addressed the presumption of bad faith and irrationality and typical violations by the officials.
Evgeny Bolshakov, the Firm’s leading antimonopoly expert and Pavel Sadovsky, the Head of IP/ТМТ Practice, addressed the topical issues of legal regulation and protection of exclusive IP rights in advertising.
The Firm’s Partner Sergey Kovalev reviewed bankruptcy-related litigations. Sergey’s speech was focused on the procedure for challenging of claims, the current litigation trends, challenging of official receiver’s actions and the materiality of violations criteria. In addition, Mr. Kovalev gave special priority to real estate litigations, and namely to challenging of the cadastral value of land plots and capital construction projects, as well as on the main litigation trends.
Partner Ivan Smirnov addressed the main problems and the specifics of antimonopoly disputes. He covered cartels, concerted actions, abuse of dominance and talked about the tendering procedure as per the recent rulings of the Russian Supreme Arbitrazh Court. In conclusion Ivan advised in how to interact with the antitrust authorities as relates inspections and proceedings.
Ivan Smirnov and the Firm’s Associate Evgeny Gurchenko also addressed environmental disputes, which concluded the workshop. In their speech they outlined the results of the Russian Supreme Court Plenum on the responsibility for environmental and natural management incompliances. Environmental regulation issues raised an animated discussion involving both the speakers and the attendees.
The workshop was attended by representatives of legal departments of the largest national and international companies.
