Russia

Advised a Russian corporation in a dispute to a value of over US$150 million in relation to cancelled Credit Linked Notes

In an LCIA arbitration concerning a high profile real estate project in Moscow, worth $160m, and involving complex issues of fraud, illegality and a combination of Russian, Kazakh and BVI law, we have taken an innovative approach to calculating the damages at stake.

We represent Russian businessman Vitaly Archangelsky in a dispute with a Russian bank in relation to a port terminal in St Petersburg.

An ex-director of our client, a Cypriot company, defrauded the business of $6m. Following a case in Cyprus, we stepped in to obtain a freezing injunction from the London courts, and then secured a final charging order over a London property to recoup the losses.

We advised a prominent Russian family on establishing international private wealth holding structures in Switzerland, US, UK, Italy and Cyprus.

We represent a substantial Russian engineering business, recently advising on the international tax aspects of its group restructuring prior to IPO.

Advised a Russian client on relocating him and his family to the UK in the context of the UK statutory residence test, including advising on managing the tax implications of his role in the business, purchase and use of residential and investment property in the UK and elsewhere (such as appropriate property holding structures) and detailed advice on how to maximize remittance planning techniques with respect to sources of funds generated prior to and after his arrival in the UK.

We acted on behalf of the holding company and shareholders behind one of the largest conglomerates of heavy industrial companies in Russia. The company was in dispute with a bank over the basis of a loan the bank had given it. The complex legal proceedings included an LCIA arbitration in London, anti-suit injunctions and injunctions in the Netherlands.

We are coordinating litigation arising from a shareholder’s dispute in Cyprus, Anguilla and Belize on behalf of Russian shareholders in a global financial business.

Acting for a Russian industrialist in defence of claim for enforcement of a US$30 million Russian default judgment and successful appeal to the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) Court of Appeal and the UK Privy Council.

We are advising a Russian owned Hong Kong company in a dispute over a success fee relating to the sale of shares.

Successful representation of a prominent Russian businessman and officials in highly complex and interrelated committal, bankruptcy and Commercial Court proceedings.

Withers represented a multilateral agency on project and other structured financings in Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Hungary, FYR Macedonia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Turkey, and Pakistan on a variety of projects. These include: <br /> - the multilateral agency on its €250 million Western Balkans and Croatia Financing Framework for banks and non-banking financial institutions, including leasing companies. Micro-finance institutions, factoring companies, consumer finance companies, mortgage companies and insurance companies operating in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo and Croatia; <br /> - the multilateral agency on its US$40 million framework facility which was available to qualifying Kyrgyz participating banks and financial institutions in the form of credit-lines (including mortgage loans, SME loans and consumer finance loans) by the agency to the local financial institutions or through the agency making minority equity investments in the local financial institutions. The purpose of this was to improve financial intermediation in the Kyrgyz Republic and to assist in the development of the non-banking financial intermediation sector.

We are representing a Russian owned BVI company in successfully obtaining judgment setting aside a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) on the grounds of material irregularity on the basis that the contracts for the purchase of land in St Petersburg entered into between the debtor and alleged Russian vendors, which created the liability of value sufficient enough to pass the CVA, were shams

Acting for a Russian oligarch in enforcement of English Commercial Court and Jersey Royal Court freezing orders and judgment in excess of US$40 million.