The VIII Juridical Forum of Russia: opportunities and perspectives of interaction between the legal community and business, the legal community and the State

02.05.2012

The VIII Juridical Forum of Russia, organized by the “Vedomosti” newspaper, was held in Moscow on April 17-18. Corporate lawyers, advocates and lawyers of the best Russian and foreign legal firms took part in the Forum. Among them:

Vladimir Pligin, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation and Development of State,
Andrey Egorov, Chief of Cabinet of the SCA of Russia;
Tatiana Ignatieva, Deputy Director of the Federal Bailiff Service;
Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, and Alexander Kinev, Chief of Anti-Cartel Department of the FAS;
Maria Sazonova, President of the Federal Notarial Chamber;
Henry Reznik, President of the Moscow Chamber of Advocates;
Representatives of the Federal Service on Financial Markets, Investigation Committee of Russia, public corporations, major banks of the Russian Federation and managing companies.

The Law Firm "YUST" was the official partner of the event. At the Forum, it was represented by:

Yury Pilipenko, Managing Partner (moderator of the session “Does the advocacy institution correspond to the modern business reality?”);
Artem Kukin, Partner (moderator of the session “Efficiency of court rulings execution: problems of execution proceedings”);
Arthur Rokhlin, Partner (participant of the session “Antitrust regulation”);
Advocate Alexander Bolomatov, Associated Partner;
Advocate Anna Kotova-Smolenskaya, Associated Partner;
Advocate Igor Pastukhov, Tax Advisor (participant of the session “Criminal legislation in the sphere of economic activity”);
Advocate Maxim Rovinskiy, Head of Tax and Customs Law Practice;
Radmila Nikitina, Acting Head of Antitrust Law Group.

Opportunities and perspectives of interaction between the legal community and business, the legal community and the State were the most discussed topics of the juridical forum of “Vedomosti” this year. The event’s participants dedicated special attention to the question, why Russian businessmen prefer foreign jurisdictions. Even the plenary session began with a comic rating presented by the Chairman of the Partners’ Committee of the Advocates’ Bureau “Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev and Partners”. In the opinion of Dmitry Afanasiev, sleeping berths installed by British Airways on its Moscow – London flights and inclusion of jellied minced meat, pancakes and Kosher steaks in the menu of a London café situated in front of the High Court of Justice should be rated “first” events of the last 12 months. According to the internal statistics of the legal company, not more than 10% of all transactions are made under the Russian law. However, this information raised doubts of V.Pligin, Chairman of the State Duma Committee: “It is the first time that I hear this figure. It should be deeply thought over. I hope it was not caused by the fact that English law consultation costs twice as much?” For more details see here.

Andrey Egorov, Chief of Cabinet of the SCA of Russia, voiced the supposition that preference of English law was “a fashion among the businessmen”. He suggested making more scientific research of quality, since the tendency to frequently reform the legislation is dominating nowadays. A.Egorov suggested, as a means to resolve the situation, creation of a single center of drafting laws, taking measures to “increase the costs” of justice and making professional representation in courts obligatory. Participants of the plenary session also stated with pity that nowadays the conditions for returning Russian business into the Russian jurisdiction are absent – as is the system of development of legal education in our country.

The session on antitrust regulation was the most spoken at. Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, and Alexander Kinev, Chief of Anti-Cartel Department of the FAS actively participated in the discussion. In his speech, A.Tsyganov stressed: the most significant changes to the legislation have already been made, and each one is essential. He said that not yet agreed and not yet discussed amendments will be included in the fourth antitrust package.

The session participants actively debated the methods and practice of the State’s action against cartels creation. Arthur Rokhlin, Partner at the Firm, expressed his fears that, under the new norms, the companies could fall victims to careless mail correspondence of non-top managers. For example, when their leaders have no actual intention to violate the antitrust legislation, but the wordings of said persons’ letters may lead to a different conclusion. In other words – if the interest in a cartel agreement was not sanctioned by the top management. The expert believes that in such cases the antimonopoly authorities should follow the definition of individual guilt fixed in the Administrative Offences Code of Russia as well as obligatorily avail themselves of the opportunity to conduct the economic analysis of the competition market. However, there is no doubt that the legal entity is by no means exempt from the duty to take all possible steps to prevent the creation of a cartel. Moreover, it should be stipulated by the law in detail.

The session “Criminal legislation in the sphere of economic activity” was held simultaneously. Its participants discussed the practical significance, which liberalization of criminal legislation has for the business. Tamara Morschakova, Councilor on Improvement of Legislation of the Constitutional Court of Russia, and Georgy Smirnov, Senior Inspector of the Chief Organizational and Expert Department of the Investigation Committee of Russia, engaged in an active dispute, the former proclaiming herself “in favour” of humanization of justice, and the latter insisting that the lawmaker maintain the status quo in the sphere.

The experts also dwelled on the subject of the new algorithm of discovering tax offences, which was introduced in connection with the inclusion of part 1.1 into Article 140 of the CCRF (initiation of criminal cases only on the materials received by the Investigation Committee of Russia from tax authorities).

The discussion, whether the legal community was prepared for the introduction of the advocate’s monopoly, was no less acute. Yury Pilipenko, Managing Partner at the Firm, First Vice President of the federal Chamber of Advocates of the Russian Federation, moderated the session. According to him, the institution of advocacy does not correspond to the modern business reality, but the advocate’s monopoly is nevertheless necessary, uppermost in the sphere of court representation. And one of the obvious advantages of the advocacy corporation, in comparison with other professional congregations, is its ability to “cleanse itself”. However, nothing can prevent an advocate, who was stripped of his status for violation of the Professional Ethics Code, from rendering, as a lawyer, further unqualified assistance to citizens.

The session participants, with some reservations, split into two groups. The group of supporters of the advocate’s monopoly was the more numerous one and included Andrey Gorodissky, Managing Partner at “Andrey Gorodissky and Partners”, Alexander Muranov, Managing Partner at “Muranov, Chernyakov and Partners”, Evgeny Timofeev, Partner at Goltsblat BLP, Yuly Tay, Managing Partner at the “Bartolius” Advocates’ Bureau. Evgeny Voevodin, Managing Partner at the “Antimonopoly Bureau”, and Denis Puchkov, Managing Partner of “Puchkov and Partners”, strongly opposed the idea of the monopoly.

For more information on the discussion see “Novaya Advokatskaya Gazeta” No. 9 (issue date – 10.05.2012).

Another acute problem, how to increase the efficiency of execution of court rulings, was discussed during the Forum. Artem Kukin, Partner at the Firm, drew the participants’ attention to the suggestions, voiced among the experts, to raise the level of execution of court acts by, for example, endowing the exactor with additional rights to search for the debtor by his own means or by distributing some execution functions among public service bailiffs and private bailiffs.

At the same time, Tatiana Ignatieva, Deputy Director of the Federal Bailiff Service, was somewhat skeptical toward the implementation of such institution. According to her information, the countries, which have this mechanism of execution of court acts, lack convincing statistics of the mechanism’s positive effect on the efficiency of court acts’ execution. Does Russia need private bailiffs? – see here.

T.Ignatieva also drew the participants’ attention to the following fact: at times, the judges themselves word their rulings in such a way, that they become impossible to execute.

Other subjects discussed at the Forum included opening the corporate veil and electronic auctions.

More details on the Forum’s program are available here.