On 19 May Evgeny Druzhinin, Head of the Real Estate and Construction Department, took part in a working group on the development of public open spaces in St. Petersburg assembled by Vice-Governor Igor Albin at the Committee for Improvements to the City.

The group discussed a variety of questions concerning the problems of a complex approach to the creation and use of public open spaces in the city, particularly parks. The delegates examined a completed project in Moscow – the Krymskaya Embankment and Gorky Park. They went on to discuss specific examples of projects in St. Petersburg: for a park in Frunzensky District (the second stage of the Internationalists’ Park) and the “Benoit Garden” in the north of the city.

The seminar was held in the conference room of the Indigo Hotel on 19 May. The moderator was Sergey Bakeshin, Senior Lawyer at Maxima Legal, and the special guest was Vladimir Miroshnichenko, chairman of the first team of judges at the Arbitration Court for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.

The seminar’s participants discussed changes in the law on bankruptcy for legal entities, as well as measures on the bankruptcy of private citizens that are yet to come into force.

The first speaker was Sergey Bakeshin, Head of Maxima Legal’s Corporate Law Department. He described the aims and consequences of the extensive changes in the rules on bankruptcy for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs adopted at the end of 2014. He said that among the main consequences were a reduction in the number of bankruptcy cases and simplified access to justice. He gave his assessment of the new legal measures aimed at providing protection from unscrupulous debtors, the changes relating to arbitration managers and the extension of the rights of mortgagors, as well as changes relating to the rules on the disputing of transactions by debtors.

In the opinion of the next speaker – Lyana Tlepsheva, Head of the Claims Department at the “Petrovsky” branch of the Khanty-Mansiysk Otkrytye Bank, the bankruptcy rules in the form adopted by the State Duma do not meet the interests of banks and other creditors. She was followed by Denis Kucherov, arbitration manager of “LAM” “Dostoyanie”, who remarked that the level of remuneration for financial managers acting in bankruptcy cases set in the legislation was extremely low and in no way commensurate with the volume of work and the level of responsibility. A lively discussion ensued on the consequences of non-observation of the requirement to notify creditors of the intention of a debtor or credit organization to file for bankruptcy. Vladimir Miroshnichenko, chairman of the first team of judges at the Arbitration Court for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, indicated that judges were currently refusing to accept applications filed without observing this requirement.

The seminar’s participants discussed a whole range of other problems arising from the application of the latest version of the bankruptcy law. Vladimir Miroshnichenko stressed: “an answer can be found to any question, but that answer will not always be correct”.

On 19 May 2015 Maxima Legal will assemble market experts in the conference hall in the Indigo Hotel to discuss topical matters and problems in the bankruptcy field.

In the current economic conditions the bankruptcy mechanism for companies is becoming a complicated procedure. When a declaration of bankruptcy is the only way of discharging liabilities, it is important to devise a civilized strategy for clearing debts. The changes made in the bankruptcy rules for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, as well as the rules on the bankruptcy of private citizens, will be examined in detail at the seminar with the participation of the self-regulatory organization of arbitration managers, Russian insolvency specialists and judges from the St. Petersburg Arbitration Court.

The event will be of interest to representatives of both the economic sector and the financial sector (creditors) – banks, finance companies, etc.

In the run-up to the 5th St. Petersburg Legal Forum “Delovoy Peterburg” conducted a poll of representatives of major law firms attending the forum about their expectations and preferences.

Maxim Avrashkov, Managing Partner of Maxima Legal, shared his point of view. “The first thing that would be interesting to hear concerns alternative approaches to the education of lawyers, in particular the opinions of speakers from foreign colleges. My colleague Vladimir Kilinkarov and I would like to discuss regional matters: the investment climate in the regions, their lawmaking base and the problems of public-private partnerships”.

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“Delovoy Peterburg” published an article assessing the use of public-private partnership mechanisms by law firms in St. Petersburg. A poll of legal consultancy experts showed a clear reduction in concessional activity in St. Petersburg, which has led to the search for clients in other regions.

Vladimir Kilinkarov, Candidate of Jurisprudence, a partner in Maxima Legal and head of the company’s Public-Private Partnership Department, contributed to the article, describing his own experience as a consultant on public-private partnerships in the Yaroslavl, Tula and Volgograd Regions and as a concessionaire of one of the municipalities in the Moscow Region.

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