Maxima Legal’s Private Wealth department has signed an agreement to work together with one of Russia’s leading private banks, Bank VTB-24. Together with Bank VTB-24, we aim to develop a long and mutually beneficial relationship.

We are pleased to introduce our new colleague, a qualified solicitor of English and Wales, Robert Houchill. Robert will head a new area of immigration services provided by our firm’s Private Wealth department. In addition, Robert will assist clients with various matters concerning English and International law, including commercial, contract and corporate law.

Robert completed a law degree at Essex University before completing the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law in Bloomsbury, London. Before moving to St Petersburg in September 2015, Robert worked at a number of law firms in London for five years, including at leading Legal 500-ranked firms Gherson and Bates Wells Braithwaite.

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/

Maxima Legal team has successfully conducted due diligence (legal review) of a large set of assets in Moscow planned to be purchased by the Group of Companies “Etalon”. This set included, in particular, a few companies and over one hundred different types of real estate facilities (buildings, constructions, land plots). As part of due diligence issues of corporate law, privatization, real estate and urban development, land, antitrust and labor legislation, big amount of commercial and financial agreements were thoroughly analyzed. ML experts submitted to the client a detailed report on due diligence (over 300 pages) as well as a specified list of risks to assess feasibility of entering the project.

Legal firm Maxima Legal took part in the qualification-based selection organized by OOO “Sberbank Investitsii” in order to form a register of accredited legal services suppliers.

On August 10, the tendering committee summed up the results of selection, based on the results of which Maxima Legal entered the register of accredited suppliers on the block “Court proceedings in the RF.”

General information about the competition is available on the following link: http://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/documents.html?noticeId=4030107&epz=true&style44=false

Elena Kilinkarova, Counselor, Head of Tax Law Practice of Maxima Legal joined the editorial board of the new journal “Gosudarstvennyi i munitsipalnyi finansovyi control” of the Publishing Group “Yurist”. E. Gracheva Doctor of Juridical Science, Professor, D. Vinnitskii Doctor of Juridical Science, Professor, M. Ivlieva Candidate of Juridical Science, Associate Professor and other outstanding figures of modern jurisprudence also joined the staff of the editorial board.

The journal is aimed at the broad audience: civil servants of different levels, lawyers of enterprises and institutions, attorneys and barristers, representatives of science, accountants and auditors whose scientific interests and practical activity are connected with issues of cash flow control, performing duties in the financial market as well as in the area of insurance, taxation, formation of state and local budgets.

http://lawinfo.ru/catalog/magazines/gosudarstvenniy-i-municipalniy-finansoviy-kontrol/

As part of practice Private Wealth experts of Maxima Legal together with international partners advise a private client conducting business in the area of agro-tourism and real estate in different jurisdictions on issues of international tax planning. In this case, our company is developing the structure of the clients ownership of the assets referred by the client (real estate objects, financial assets and so on) for the purpose of optimization of these assets taxation taking into account interests of the client and requirements of applicable legislation of Russia, Austria, Romania and Malta.

Last weekend Maxim Avrashkov, managing partner of law firm Maxima Legal participated in a strategy session of Leaders Club in St Petersburg and Leningrad Region.

During dynamic two-day strategy session members of Leaders Club developed key principles of business alliance for St Petersburg unit. In the second part of the event the presentation of a few projects that would be implemented with participation of Leaders Club took place.

Oleg Grinko, a member of the professional community of directors “Direktorium”, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ZAO “Sberinvest” (ZAO “Upravliaiushchiia kompaniia “Sberezheniia I investitsii”) took part in the strategic session of the Club. He spoke about management system in Tavrida Electric.
Dmitri Yalov, Deputy Chairman of the Government of Leningrad Region – Chairman of the Committee for Economic Development and Investment Activity, Julia Ludinova head of the project office of the Administration of St Petersburg were also guests of the event. Representatives of state executive bodies (SEB) spoke about principles of project management implemented in the regions and project offices created, designed to improve the investment climate of Leningrad Region and St Petersburg.

Summing up the strategic session the regional coordinator of Leaders Club Vyacheslav Traktovenko thanked all members of the Club for productive work and noted the importance of such event for St Petersburg unit. “We conduct the strategic session already for the second time and today we can confidently say that we have performed really a lot from the things planned in 2015. Not all goals set last summer have been achieved, but we will make maximum efforts to overcome all obstacles on our way.”

Maxima Legal, together with partners from Athens (Corporate Deals) and Cyprus (Stelios Americanos & Co.) accompanied the acquisition of the hotel and land on Crete island (Greece) to create the new modern 4* hotel.

Commercial closing took place on Thursday, July 7th and was successful. In addition to the purchase of the objects, simultaneously the transactions on the renovation of the existing hotel and construction of new buildings, as well as the rental and operation of the new hotel for 5 years were closed. In addition, we have structured and implemented the corporate tax and tax models for financing the above transactions, as well as of owning and operating the hotel. We thank our colleagues and partners for the good work!

“It shall be noted a growing interest in the purchase of the tourist objects in Greece as from a part of the Russian citizens and (increasingly) from the Chinese, and the English citizens. The dynamics of development of the tourism industry in Crete and Greece in general are very positive and, given the low property prices and services in Greece, such projects can show a good margin in the range of 10-12% per year on investments” - said Vladimir Kilinkarov, head of the project legal team, the partner of Maxima Legal.

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.