Dear friends,

Maxima Legal wishes you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We wish you success and prosperity, only positive emotions and realisation of all your plans!

Let colleagues, friends and family encourage you with perception and support, let the goals be successfully achieved and all of your dreams come true!

Please find our Season's Greetings here.

Maxima Legal team

On 27 December eleven pupils of the Novolisinskaya boarding school went to a New Year concert at the St. Petersburg Philharmonia featuring the cartoon ‘The Snowman’. The Philharmonic Academic Symphony Orchestra played Christmas music by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Maxima Legal would like to thank the St. Petersburg Philharmonia for its support in the organization of this New Year outing for children from the ‘Faith and Hope’ charity and the ‘Interservice’ transport company for providing a coach for the children.

We hope to see you again!

On 29 January Evgeniy Druzhinin, Head of Maxima Legal’s Real Estate and Construction Department, took part in the Christmas summit meeting of the Guild of Managers and Developers in Krasnodar. Market professionals met to discuss the results of 2015 and plans for the future, as well as to exchange opinions.

At the opening session of the summit Evgeniy gave a report entitled ‘The Market in 2015: Results in Facts, Figures and Trends’. He spoke about concessional agreements and agreements concerning state-private partnerships as an instrument for investment in real estate. One of the topical subjects discussed at the Christmas summit was the use of the state-private partnership model for building objects of social infrastructure as part of projects involving major land development.

http://www.gud-estate.ru/ver_info/1414

On February 18th, in W hotel, Maxima Legal Law Firm has held another seminar on the inheritance planning, this time - for the private clients of “Alfa-Bank". Natalia Demina, Head of the Private Wealth Practice, has moderated the event. Elena Antonova, Notary, a partner of the company in this practice, has spoken about the pros and cons of the hereditary succession and the testate succession, about the objectives and instruments of the inheritance planning. Natalia Demina has confirmed the relevance and ambiguity of the issues raised by the notary, while drawing the attention of the audience to the possible unpleasant consequences of a lack of planning under the complications of the hereditary case with “a foreign element”: for example, under location of the real estate abroad, under the presence of dual citizenship, etc. Natalia also drew the attention of the audience to the complexity of a business inheritance.

Maxima Legal team led by the Partner and Head of the Group of international projects, Vladimir Kilinkarov, accompanies the acquisition of the hotel and the land lot for construction in the coastal zone of Crete island, Greece. We are working on this project with the help of our partners from Athens (Corporate Deals) and Cyprus (Stelios Americanos & Co).

At the moment, the investors (mostly the Russians, the Chinese and the British) are showing an increasing interest in the Greek assets, the value of which has declined markedly in recent years. “Nowadays there are quite a lot of offers, especially on the part of the Greek banks, the prices are falling, and the flow of tourists to the resorts such as Crete increases. Therefore this transaction is not an isolated case, the number of such transactions shall only grow”, - said Vladimir Kilinkarov.

On March 23rd, Natalia Demina, lawyer of the Maxima Legal, has participated in a business briefing “Import Substitution on the Food market: Reality and Forecast”, organized by the independent business club "Meeting" with the support of the Russian-British Chamber of Commerce. Discussion on the import substitution policy in the country has brought together the experts and the industry participants.

Natalia was talking about the changes in legislation in this field under the sanctions, citing the existing restrictions (bans) on participation of the foreign manufacturers of certain categories of the goods in the government procurement, and the various state programs, and so on. Natalia just elaborated on the theme of food import substitution, drawing the attention of the guests to the fact that up until now none of the regulations did not provide for the liability for sale of the sanctions products, as well as not did not establish a ban for their sale in the country (there is a ban on imports).

Summing up, Natalia noted that often the effectiveness of thestate mechanisms in the framework of import substitution policies, raises doubts in many, in this sense the care about our economy shall become daily and concrete.

“Delovoy Petersburg” summarized the traditional rating of the lawyers. Sergey Bakeshin, Senior Lawyer of Maxima Legal, shared the second place in the rating with Alexandra Popova, lawyer of “Lex Kledere Consulting” and Andrey Mikonin, Partner of “S&K Vertical”.

http://www.dp.ru/a/2016/03/20/Domashnie_pokazali_klass/

ML team, uniting the experts in the tax law practice and the dispute resolution practice, has accomplished an adoption of the resolution by the arbitration court of appellate instance on revocation of the decision of the tax authority on additional charge of the ML client of an income tax and penalties in the amount exceeding RUR 80 million.

As part of the collaborative dispute resolution practice and tax law practice the ML team provided the consultations to the client on the use of a rare mechanism of tax collection, involving the recovery of the tax in court not from a taxpayer, but from other persons. It shall be noted that the practice of application of the relevant provisions of the tax law has not yet been developed, and this category of the disputes is new for the Russian courts.

Third Global Charity Race of the Lawyers this year will be held on May 29th in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Novosibirsk and other Russian cities. Global Legal Run brings together the representatives of the professional community of lawyers from 14 countries of the world. Funds raised as a result of this event will go to support the persons in care of “Podari jizn'” Charity Foundations.

This year, the entire team of the Maxima Legal team will take part in the race.

On April 11th, the Agency for Strategic Investments of St. Petersburg hosted a presentation of the concept of implementation of the projects on construction of the hotels in the city with use of the concession agreements. The discussion of the issue has brought together the investors, representatives of the Investment Committee and legal advisers in the field of the public-private partnership.

Maxima Legal became a partner of this event and developed a legal model of implementation of the concession project in the field of hotel infrastructure in St. Petersburg.

Vladimir Kilinkarov, Partner, Head of Practice of the Public-Private Partnership, in his presentation on the topic “Concession as a Mechanism for Creating the Objects of Hotel Infrastructure in St. Petersburg”, has presented a scheme of interaction of the concedent and the concessionaire in this area.

Maxima Legal was included in the list of the recommended law firms of Russia in the category  of “Corporate, Commercial Law/ Mergers and Acquisitions” (St. Petersburg) and “Public Private Partnership” (Russia), according to The Legal 500 EMEA.

On April 13^th were published the results of 2016 research of an independent international rating of the best law firms, The Legal 500 Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

For a complete rating of the companies recommended by The Legal  500 in Russia please visit: http://www.legal500.com/c/russia/legal-market-overview

Maxima Legal company has prepared a new informational digest “Maxima Insight, First Six Months of 2016” on the legislation news, legal practices and industries with the commentaries of the major players on the market, our partners and colleagues.

In this issue Maxima Legal lawyers have prepared an analytical review of the changes in the legislation in the first half of 2016.

Enjoy reading! We will be happy to provide the detailed comments on the issues raised in our review.

Vladimir Kilinkarov, Partner, Head of Maxima Legal, Public Private Partnership on May 20th took part in the II Annual Conference “Public-private partnership in the transport sector: models and experiences”, organized by the Higher School of Management of St. Petersburg State University.

Vladimir Kilinkarov was invited as an expert in the conference section of the PPP-debates “The new Russian law on PPP: opportunities and constraints in the transport sector.” Among other participants of the discussion were Andrey Vitalyevich Kiselev, Deputy Head of Infrastructure Financing Department, VTB Capital, Alexey Borisovich Chichkanov, Executive Vice President of Gazprombank, Olga Anatolyevna Potiforova, Head of PPP Department and External Relations Directorate for the development of the transport system in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region, as well as the top managers of the companies, implement PPP projects, heads of legal departments and legal advisors.

On May 26th, the informational and educational center of Vodokanal of St. Petersburg, the State Unitary Enterprise hosted a forum dedicated to the issues of public and private partnerships and infrastructure development in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.

Participants in the dialogue were the representatives of various spheres of business and executive authorities of the region. Under the program of the forum various projects have been discussed in the field of construction, energy, transport, social services (education, health), that were implemented, or had the opportunity to be implemented with the help of the PPP mechanism.

Vladimir Kilinkarov, Head of the Public and Private Partnership (PPP) participated in the first session of the Strategic Forum “Construction and infrastructure projects. How to enhance the opportunities of investors”. In his speech, Vladimir said that the main problem of implementation of the infrastructure projects is their lack of financing and that PPP mechanism and the concession agreements, as a friendly and reliable tools, can solve this problem, although the regulatory framework for these mechanisms still has to be improved and worked out for their better functioning.

"Leaders Club on promoting business initiatives" in cooperation with the Maxima Legal law firm organizes the Round table “Perspectives of the development of public and private partnerships in the regions of the Russian Federation”, timed to the St. Petersburg’s International Economic Forum-2016.

Their participation in the Round table confirmed the governors of several Russian regions, regional executive authorities in the field of economy and investments, development corporations, the authorities of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, as well as representatives of the business of the north-western region.

During the round table will be held a discussion about the development of PPP as an easy and potentially effective tool for cooperation between the authorities and investors in the economic crisis, the best regional practices in the field of concessions and PPP will be considered.

On May 26th, the business forum of the Russian-British Chamber of Commerce was conducted in St. Petersburg Chamber of Industry and Commerce on “Doing business with the UK and the UK”. Participants of the forum were the representatives of St. Petersburg business, interested in the implementation of the business plans in the country of Foggy Albion.

Participants of the forum have spoken with the audience about the practical aspects of doing business in the UK, about the steps needed to achieve this goal. Vladimir Kilinkarov in turn listed the practical features of work with the British lawyers which are likely to be encountered by Russian businessmen.

On May 30th a regular meeting of the Investment Council under the Governor of St. Petersburg was held, which was attended by members of the Leaders' Club. Draft Resolution of the Government of St. Petersburg “On Amendments to the Law of St. Petersburg “On the strategic investment projects, strategic investors and strategic partners of St. Petersburg”. Vladimir Kilinkarov, Partner of Maxima Legal, took part in this meeting as an expert who helped the investment Committee in the development of amendments to this law.

During the meeting the Council has also considered a number of investment projects for their implementation in the city, and signed a concession agreement on the creation, reconstruction and operation of the streetcar network in Krasnogvardeyskiy district of St. Petersburg.

On July 5th, 2016 Vladimir Kilinkarov, partner of Maxima Legal law firm, participated in the Transportaion Systems of Russia forum, organized by the PPP development center in Moscow. Vladimir was among the speakers of the open discussion “Private Concession Initiative in the Transportation Projects”, in which was discussed the first experience of use of the private initiative mechanism in the concession projects, the need for administrative and legislative changes.

On 24 to 25 August, Vladimir Kilinkarov, Partner and head of the firm’s Public Private Partnership (PPP) department, took part in a forum in Tula about PPP in the Central Federal District (one of the eight federal districts of Russia and the most populous). The forum was organised jointly by the regional government of Tula, the Centre for the Development of PPP and the Tula Region Development Corporation.

The objective of the forum was to discuss and share best practices and exchanged experiences in the implementation of PPP projects in the Central Federal District. Representatives of various regions of the Central Federal District, representatives of federal governmental departments (including the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Health), investors and private partners, leading experts in the field and members of the media all took part in the forum.

Official site of the forum: http://forum.invest-tula.com/