On June 16, 2016, several hours prior to the official opening of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum at the Domina Prestige Hotel, a panel session “New Opportunities for National and Foreign Companies in Russia in Light of Import Replacement and Global De-Offshorization”  took place under the patronage of the Eurasian Chamber of American Bar Association (ABA) and with the support of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia (AmCham) and the St. Petersburg International Business Association (SPIBA). The representatives of such companies as AEROHELP, Schnieder Group, YIT, VTB Development, Expert Examination Center and others participated in the event. 

Managing Partner of Capital Legal Services Vladislav Zabrodin acted as a moderator of the panel session “Localization of production on the Russian market. New opportunities.”

Evgeniy Kardash (POLYSAN Scientific & Technological Pharmaceutical Company), Maksim Kalinin (Baker & McKenize) and Dmitry Dyachkov (Eselta Group) also took part in the session. The session participants discussed issues of localization and import replacement in Russia from the standpoint of key economic sectors for such goals: pharmaceutics, information technologies and the automobile industry.

It was noted that in spite of a large number of state initiatives, including legislative, which are intended to encourage the development of localization and import replacement in these industries, there are also some problem areas, such as insufficient level of staff competence in production, certain difficulties with concluding localization agreements, certain prohibitive measures restricting healthy competition on the market, leading, as a consequence, to decrease in the quality and increase of the cost. However, the participants of the discussion expressed confidence that localization and import replacement are positive factors for the development of an independent Russian economy.

The second part of the event was devoted to discussion of de-offshorization and tax amnesty for individuals having assets outside Russia. Elena Beier, Managing Partner of Beier and Partners, acted as moderator of the discussion. Igor Guschev (Duvernoix Legal), Natalia Luchkova (Tax Team) and Diana Menchik (KPMG) participated in the discussion. The issues regarding implementation of the BEPS plan aimed at combatting base erosion and profit shifting were brought up in the course of the session.

The participants noted that the work on implementing the plan has been carrying on for a long time. At present, 83 countries have an opportunity to exchange information on the assets of foreigners by request, and starting from 2018, 94 countries will have an opportunity to exchange information using automated means. In the future, initiative (spontaneous) exchange of information is expected, where the initiator of the transfer is the party possessing such information.

Both subjects attracted a keen interest of the participants, with the discussion continuing in the course of coffee brakes and after the event.