According to Vladimir Kilinkarov, Partner at Maxima Legal and Head of the PPP practice, ‘financing of PPP projects presently is a major problem for all areas of infrastructure in the country. It affects micro-projects from 500 million roubles, which are 20-30% financed by private investors with the remaining coming from banks, and mega-projects for which funds from government budgets, pension and investment funds are willing provided. In such projects, thanks to the guarantees provided by the legislation, the publicity of the projects and their transparency, foreign operators and investment funds are often involved. In light of the Central Bank’s easing on providing credit for such projects with a lower percentage and secured against rights to receive revenues from the project, this encourages business interest in PPPs.’

For further information and to read the article, ‘It is necessary to create opportunities, and then money will be found’, click here.

On 8 July, Delovoy Peterburg published an article which examines the situation between the tenants and the landlord of a commercial centre in St Petersburg called Monpansye.  The article is about how the dispute concerning Monpansye, which is a 58,500 square metres property, in the arbitration court of St Petersburg and the Leningrad region flared up.

Head of the practice for real estate and construction at Maxima Legal, Konstantin Boytsov, is representing the interests of a tenant, a gallery of Russian designers called ‘Luglook’, who the landlord is threatening with fines and doubling rental payments along with a threat of blocking access to the building.

Konstantin assessed the current situation as a flagrant breach of the law, ‘eviction of a tenant can only take place on the basis of a court decision, the actions of blocking access of a tenant, whose lease is registered with Rosreestre [the Russian equivalent of a Land Registry], is against legislation.’

He considers that the owner of the commercial centre used the procedure of restructuring in order to try to avoid the obligations of the previous owner.

To read the article (in Russian), please see the following website: dp.ru.

The Russian Parliament has introduced a draft law according to which courts will have the ability to lower damages payable for infringements of exclusive intellectual property rights below the minimum figures established in the Russian Civil Code.  The proposed law relates to situations when one infringement touches upon a number of intellectual property rights; for which the right holder is entitled to compensation or damages.

At the same time, the draft law establishes a minimum limit for compensation for one infringement: 10,000 roubles. The authors of the proposed law suggest that the size of compensation should be determined by taking into account the circumstances of the case, the consequences and character of the infringement.  It is proposed that such an approach when calculating compensation will exclude situations compensation payable is manifestly unfair and disproportionate to the infringement.

Senior Associate at Maxima Legal, Maxim Ali, who specialises in intellectual property matters, commented that providing courts with more freedom to reduce compensation is justifiable, however, the current draft legislation has a number of inadequacies. The conditions for reducing compensation are rather abstract, and overall the draft law is more favourable for the person infringing intellectual property rights, when compared to the recent guidance from the Russian Constitutional Court, which is the source of the proposed changes to the Civil Code.

It is possible that in the event of a dispute, the Court will be able to reduce the compensation to the minimum level of 10,000 roubles. Accordingly a company seeking to protect its exclusive intellectual property rights might more cautiously approach issuing court proceedings.  From another side, companies who are defendants in such claims from right-holders will get an additional tool that can reduce the adverse effects of such legal disputes.

To read the full article (in Russian), please click on the following link.