Is money the cure for everything? Why can't a partner be a freeloader? Is a lawyer there for the company or is the company there for the lawyer? The country’s leading lawyers searched for the answers, argued and at times even agreed with each other on these eternal questions within the framework of the “fireplace” session at the 12th International Law Firm Management Conference.

Daniil Petrukh became lawyer of Fall 2018 according to the Delovoi Peterburg publisher in the Bankruptcy nomination after defending a client’s interests in a unique case concerning Transaero’s unpaid debt.

The most worthy law firms of 2018 according to the Pravo.ru Rating have been unveiled, and CLS has something to be proud of. All practices that applied for the rating were assigned a group.

The Public-Private Partnership practice at the CLS law firm organized a first-of-its-kind case championship in this field for students.

A counsel in a leading Russian law firm has been named as a top lawyer in an influential legal publication.

The control procedure for foreign currency operations by individuals connected with loans is once again undergoing changes. Anastasia Kuzmina, Head of the Tax group at Capital Legal Services, tells us what this means.

What was the new Capital Legal Services business breakfast about and how useful was it?

President Trump has less than three months to impose all or part of them or to leave them as a phantom menace. Will European countries support the overseas ally or will Russia make its own deal with them? Will Britain keep to the sidelines in respect to these decisions, while being engulfed by Brexit-related problems? What counter sanctions will Russia introduce as response? How will geopolitics affect markets and the activity of international law firms?

Vladislav Zabrodin, Managing Partner of Capital Legal Services, held a panel discussion on these topical issues at the international conference Russian Law Week 2018 in London. Organizers even gave it a name in Russian – Без границ (‘bez granits,’ meaning ‘without borders’).

Western colleagues have serious concerns about plans of the Russian government to reform the legal services market, which could lead to exodus of international players, leaving a huge market share to domestic law firms. This is because the reform implies monopolization of representation in courts by attorneys-at-law. As a result, branches and subsidiaries of foreign law firms will not be able to work in these conditions. As one of the participants said, they have already passed the stages of denial, anger and depression, and are ready for bargaining. It seems that the sanctions will take the same route.

The delicate problem of what a reasonable and balanced distinction is between the requirements of information disclosure and confidentiality of terms and conditions of concession agreements, a task that regional authorities and businessmen have been trying to resolve together, was the topic of the report by Julia Antipova, Head of PPP and Project Finance Group in Saint-Petersburg office at Capital Legal Services.

Many people think that copyright operates somewhere rather remote – in the movies, literature, music or on TV. Well, maybe on the Internet too. But in fact, almost every employee of every company becomes a real author while doing their job, even if the only things they write are a marketing plan, business report, innovation proposal or safety instructions. All these things constitute intellectual assets of a company.