October 4, 2010 – Today Dmitry Stepanov, a partner at EPAM, has participated in a roundtable discussion on Corporate Governance in Russia: Current Agenda organized by The National Council on Corporate Governance and The Institute of Contemporary Development.

The corporate governance in Russia is facing fundamental challenges as a result of the global financial and economic crisis. Russian companies, in order to reduce the negative impact of the crisis, must develop and implement an efficient corporate governance procedure that would fit in the new environment. The roundtable discussion was focused on the most pressing problems of corporate relations, and aimed at encouraging the development of a new corporate governance model.

The topics discussed included:

• Lessons learned from the economic crisis in the context of developing corporate governance in Russia
• Authority of independent directors in companies with government participation
• Role of board of directors and their specific committees in Russian companies and how the crisis affected their role
• Types of risk management mechanisms adopted by companies, that proved to be most suitable in a time of crisis, and areas that the risk management system proved most vulnerable
• Major changes in the trends of development of corporate governance in Russia as a result of the crisis. If none, what is the reason behind it? If any, in what areas and why?

The discussion was attended by representatives of business, public authorities and the expert community and included Sergey Aleksashenko, Director for Macroeconomic Research, Higher School of Economics, a state university; Alexander Sinenko, Vice-Director of the Federal Service for Financial Markets; Boris Mints, President, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Otkrytie Financial Corporation LLC; Konstantin Korishenko, CEO, MICEX CJSC; Alexander Dumnov, Board Member, MDM Bank OJSC; Andrey Shastitko, CEO, Bureau of Economic Analysis Fund; Oleg Shvyrkov, Vice-Director, Head Analyst, Corporate Governance Rating Service, Standard & Рoor's; Gennady Kolesnikov, Chairman of the Board, The Institute for Development of Financial Market NOA and others.

Dmitry Stepanov, who has also authored the Monitoring Corporate Legislation chapter in the third issue of the annual National Report on Corporate Governance, prepared by The National Council on Corporate Governance and which was distributed during the event, presented on the subject of “Corporate Legislation: What’s Done and What’s to Be Done”.