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.

On 14 June business newspaper, Delovoy Peterburg, published an article ‘Baltinvestbank argues with the bailiff’, about the potential recovery from the bank of 11 million euros which was awarded to a Virgin island offshore company Marzia Trading Ltd in February after it won an appeal following a dispute with Baltinvestbank.

If the bailiff succeeds in recovering the funds before the decision is overturned, the offshore company will be due the money. However, there are no legal grounds for not complying with the decision before the case is considered further at appeal.

“The bailiff can seize and recover funds from the bank account of the company or follow another avenue – to transfer the money from the account of the credit institution with the Central Bank”, commented Managing Partner of Maxima Legal, Maxima Avrashkov. “However, if the bailiff has not done this, the bank has an opportunity to delay payment, finding fault with the formalities, for two or three weeks during which time the appeal court should consider the matter.  The same goes for the Central Bank, usually it does not delay with transferring funds, but in the current matter, in order to help the bridge bank, it may informally make an exception.”

To read further information (in Russian), visiting the following website.