Advising Mistral Wine, a major food and alcohol producer and distributor, a part of the Mistral group, on its acquisition of 200 ha of vineyards and a winery with a designed output of 840,000 litres per year in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai. The deal is the first big-ticket investment by the Group, one of the leading domestic alcohol importers, in its own wine estate in Russia.

Advised Pangeo Capital on all aspects of setting up and operating Pangeo Radar, a Russian-Austrian joint venture between Pangeo Capital and Radarservices Smart IT Security to develop, localise and deploy IT security software for major corporations and public companies. The scope of work also included advice on matters related to governance and finance, licensing, international cross-licensing and localisation of software.

Advised KOPY Goldfields AB (publ), a Swedish gold exploration company, on sale of its subsidiary Taiga LLC, which holds several exploration and production licences in the Irkutsk Region.

Represented Sberbank in arbitrazh (commercial) courts over alleged violation of the laws on procurement of goods, works or services by certain types of legal entity. The laws were allegedly breached by competition-restricting requirements set for participants. We devised a successful representation strategy, convincing the appellate court that the decision given by the FAS of Russia was unlawful.

Supporting Verno, an international investment company, managing the PE fund Kazakhstan Infrastructure Fund C.V., in a project to develop and let around 25,000 sq m of warehouse premises in the first phase of a bigger plan to construct up to 100,000 sq m of Class A warehouses in Kazakhstan.

VKontakte filed a claim against our client Double Data to stop it collecting open information posted by users on the VKontakte network since, VKontakte claimed, such collection breached its rights to the database. Our position relied primarily on Double Data software operating like a search engine so no breach of the claimant’s rights was possible. We succeeded in having the IP Court overturn the appeal court’s ruling against our client and remand the case for reconsideration. The case has evolved as one of the most discussed disputes in recent years over use of Big Data and how search engines function.

Advised MasterCard Members Association on launching an innovative service on the Russian market: simultaneous cash-out with POS payment by bank card at shop tills.

Assisting GTLK Europe DAC with preparing a complex roadmap and advising on the legal and tax structures for establishing a leasing platform in Hong Kong for aircraft and ship leasing, in order to assess the benefits available to such platform under the concessionary aircraft leasing tax regime introduced in Hong Kong in 2017 for leasing aircraft and ships to different jurisdictions and implement the establishment of such platform.

Offcial consultant for NIKE on IP and advertising issues for FIFA World Cup 2018 held in Russia. Our team provided advice on a broad range of issues, including review of legal compliance by NIKE’s advertising campaigns, placement of outdoor advertising, use of offcial symbols of sports events and images of sportsmen, risks related to copyright and trade mark rights, trading restrictions and organisation of sports events.

Advising International Investment Bank (IIB), a multilateral development bank mainly operating in Eastern Europe and Asia, on RUB 3,6 and RUB 6 bn multi-asset secured facilities for financing and refinancing the acquisition of regional passenger jets Let L-410 Turbolet, Bell, Ansat and Mi-8 helicopters with medical modules and BELAZ coal mining trucks.

Advised Miratorg Agricultural Holding, one of the Russia’s largest agricultural producers, on its acquisition of 100% of shares in RAV Agro Orel and LB Orel, an agricultural arm of PPF Group allowing the client to materially boost its assets and production base.

Advised South/ TurkStream on construction of the Russian Sector of the South/TurkStream Offshore Pipeline project from Russia to Turkey: land acquisition, spatial planning, environmental, corporate, financing arrangements, constructions, permitting and regulatory, liaisons with government authorities, authorisations and licenses, etc.

Defended Wine Brandy Plant Alliance-1892 LLC, a major Russian cognac and whiskey producer, in a landmark tax dispute. We proved to the Supreme Court that the adjustment made to VAT deductions upon importation of goods into Russia had been illegal.

Providing comprehensive legal and tax advisory support to Rusklimat Group, the biggest Russian manufacturer and importer of climate control equipment, in relation to its programme for restructuring the Group’s business units and divisions. This programme is designed to optimise the distribution network structure and raise the Group’s attractiveness to investors.

Advised Da Vinci Capital on $55m subscription for “Gram” tokens during second round of ICO of the Telegram Group - one of the world’s most popular messenger apps. TON (Telegram Open Network) is the largest ICO in the history of cryptocurrencies and the most hyped ICO of 2018. TON Whitepaper states that 84 percent of blockchain-based projects have an active Telegram community, more than all other chat applications combined.

Represented Prosveshcheniye publishers in a trade mark litigation, the biggest court case in the history of Russia’s publishing industry, with the compensation totalling RUB 4 bn.

Advised SUEK (Siberian Coal Energy Company) on a coal mining joint venture.

Advised LG Electronics Rus on paying customs duties on certain types of imported domestic refrigerator at specific EEU customs tariff rates. In certain cases, the ad valorem equivalent of such rates could exceed the ad-valorem duty rate fixed as the bound tariff rate level in the Protocol on the Accession of the Russian Federation (to the WTO Agreement). By following our recommendations, the client recovered more than RUB 70 m from the government through the courts.

Advised Uralkali, one of the world’s largest potash producers, on its global review of employment arrangements. The comprehensive review covered a number of jurisdictions on most of the continents relevant to operations of the client.

Represented UFG Real Estate Russia and Orientir Development (former Logopark Development) in a sale transaction of the Sever-2 logistics park to Raven Russia.

Acting for PAO VimpelCom, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (Russia) LLP has triumphed in the first instance, appeal and cassation arbitrazh (commercial) courts in a dispute between mobile operators and the FAS of Russia over changes to B2B SMS service tariffs.