ALRUD Senior Partner Vassily Rudomino and Partner Alexander Zharskiy took part in the International Bar Association annual conferences in Moscow

In November two annual conferences of the International Bar Association (IBA) – IBA “Mergers and Acquisitions in Russia and the CIS” and IBA ‘Law Firm Management” conferences – were held in Moscow. Vassily Rudomino, Senior Partner at ALRUD Law Firm was a Chair of the “Motivation management for partners and associates in a law firm: what impacts an individual performance?” session. ALRUD Partner Alexander Zharskiy was a speaker in the session “Structuring M&A transactions in Russia and CIS”.

The first annual IBA “Mergers and Acquisitions in Russia and the CIS” conference hosted the guests and participants on November, 18-19. The opening speech was given by IBA President Fernando Pelaez-Pier, Senior Vice-Chair of the IBA European Forum, ALRUD Senior Partner Vassily Rudomino and Dr. Felix R. Ehrat, immediate past-Chair of the Corporate and M&A Law Committee, member of the IBA European Forum Advisory Board. More than 140 participants attended the event, including legal advisers on M&A transactions, corporate lawyers, economists, top-managers and strategic advisers as well as investment bankers and managers all those interested in development of the M&A market in Russia and the CIS.

The main topics for discussion were: the impact of the world economic crisis on mergers & acquisitions in Russia and the CIS, structuring M&A transactions, key issues in M&A transactions in Russia and the CIS (such as due diligence, corruption), antitrust and state interest protection in cross-border M&A in Russia and the CIS, overview of the recent updates in corporate legislation in Russia and the CIS, post-acquisition litigation.

ALRUD Partner Alexander Zharskiy in collaboration with Harvey Nugent, Partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Russia) discoursed on the issues of choice of transaction structure (onshore or offshore), choice of law and choice of jurisdiction in M&A transactions within the session “Structuring M&A transactions in Russia and the CIS”.

Among the other speakers are representatives of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Dedov, Arbitrator, the Supreme Arbitrazh Courth of the Russian Federation, Inge Bernaerts, Assistant to the Director-General Competition, The European Commission, Dmitry Skripichnikov, Deputy Director Corporate Governance Department of the Ministry for economic development of the Russian Federation, Tatiana Medvedeva, Senior expert of the Federal Financial Market Service, Roman Bevzenko, State Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation as well as top-managers of the major Russian and CIS companies, partners and managing partners of the leading law firms form all over the world.

The IBA received a huge number of positive responses on the conference. The Association managed to involve the leading legal practitioners fr om all over the world who could share their invaluable experience in M&A sphere with the participants of the conference.

The third annual “Law Firm Management” conference was held on November, 19-20. The IBA President Fernando Pelaez-Pier, IBA European Forum Senior Vice-Chair, ALRUD Senior Partner Vassily Rudomino and Norman Clark, Chair of the IBA Law Firm Management Committee took part in the opening session of the conference. Guest and participants of the third annual event were 160 partners and managing partners of law firms and advocate associations from 22 countries.

The main topics for discussion were economic integrity of law firms, promises and risks uniformed regulation and omission to regulate the legal profession in the post-Soviet countries, possibility of law firms to increase a demand for their services in the global crisis, motivation management for partners and associates in a law firm, law firm professional management and business development.

The Chair of “Motivation management for partners and associates in a law firm: what impacts an individual performance?” session ALRUD Senior Partner Vassily Rudomino invited managing partners of the leading law firms from Russia, France, the UK, Ukraine and Denmark to discuss such issues as motivation of partners, criterion on selection of candidates to a partner’s position, choose of profit distribution system, opportunities of raising a team of free and responsible professionals.

Issues related to motivation of partners and of profit distribution system are crucial for the managing partners from Russia and the CIS. Discourse on experience of the foreign colleagues was proficient, triggering the challenging and keen discussion.

Participation of ALRUD partners in the Organising Committees activities and their speaking at the IBA conferences in Moscow is an invaluable contribution to development and enhancement if the Firm international collaboration at the highest professional level.

IBA conferences are the events of the international scale standing out the rest of the events. For the specialists from Russia and the CIS wh ere independent legal business exists for twenty years only, these IBA conferences provide a unique chance to get acquainted with and adapt the experience of the leading lawyers form the countries with a centuries professional legal practice history. The IBA conferences help Russian lawyers to share knowledge, to adapt the experience, to gain a huge amount of new information to ask relevant questions and to be active members of the international legal society.

Extract from the interview of Vassily Rudomino to ‘Pravoviy Tizhden” edition (Kiev, Ukraine):

Correspondent: Vassily, you have participated in a number of similar events. What is so special about the IBA conference distinguishing it from other?

Vassily Rudomino: In my opinion this conference is unique. Openness of the discussion and genuine aspiration of the participants to study a case discussed from the ground up distinguished this event form the other. I suppose you hardly find such motivated audience for such a conference than you find in Russia. This conference contributes greatly to the establishment and development of the legal business in Russia and the CIS. We have to consider we are the first generation of law firm partners and we cannot take our lead from anyone as there was no one before, also we should consider there are few lawyers from Russia and the CIS who could share their experience with us. The main source of knowledge, experience and practice for us is discussion of the crucial issue on such conferences and international experience as well. Such conferences will in more demand soon.

Another feature of the conference is its international scale. There is no any other event comparing with the IBA conferences in breadth and profundity of the problems discussed. All the IBA events impress trough the list of foremost speakers from abroad, who share their invaluable experience accumulated in the years, with their colleagues from Russia and the CIS.