6 January 2005
Bills of exchange, promissory notes, and checks are classified in the Russian law as valuable papers. The category of valuable papers includes also shares of stock, obligations, treasury notes, bills of lading and other documents certifying the economic right. Strict formal rules apply to the form of valuable papers, and especially bills of exchange and promissory notes. Defects of form of valuable papers may render them void or at least deprive such documents of the special status of valuable paper...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
6 January 2005
The Russian law does not expressly address “assignment of a contract” as such, but instead regulates assignment of individual elements of the contract such as rights and obligations of the parties. Assignment of rights under a contract is called “assignment of claim”, while the assignment of obligations is called “assignment of debt” (Art. 382 - 392 of the RF Civil Code)...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
6 January 2005
In the contract of delegation, one person (a principal) designates and authorizes another person (an attorney) to perform legally binding acts on its behalf and issues a power of attorney to such another person. In this relationship only the principal is bound by actions of the attorney-in-fact within the scope of its mandate...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
6 January 2005
A contract is an agreement of two or more persons that constitutes, modifies, or terminates private rights and obligations. General rules on contracts and their formation are included in Chapters 27, 28 of the RF Civil Code. Section IV of part two of the RF Civil Code establishes specific rules applicable to individual types of contracts...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
6 January 2005
Special regulation of rights, obligations and guarantees for foreign investors in Russia is implemented through a number of federal and local laws and other legal instruments. The Federal Law On Foreign Investments in the Russian Federation of 9 July 1999 No. 160-FZ (as amended) and bilateral investment treaties of the RF are among the most important acts...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
6 January 2005
The procedure of execution (enforcement) of judicial acts is governed by Section VII of the new Arbitrazh Procedure Code of the RF of 24 July 2004 No. 95-FZ (hereinafter the “APC”), Chapter 47 of Section VI and Section VII of the new Civil Procedure Code of the RF of 14 November 2002 No. 138-FZ (hereinafter the “CPC”), the federal law No. 118-FZ On Court Bailiffs of 21 July 1997 and the Federal Law On Execution Procedure No. 119-FZ of the same date...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
6 January 2005
Recognition and execution of foreign judgements is possible and is carried out in practice. The basis for recognition and execution of foreign judgements are treaties on judicial assistance. Currently such treaties exist with the about forty countries: Romania, Albania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, North Korea, Poland, Iraq, Yemen, Algeria, Bulgaria, Greece, Tunisia, Cyprus, Cuba, Mongolia, China, Kyrgizia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova, Azerbajdzhan, Vietnam, India, Egypt, Argentina, etc...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
6 January 2005
The Constitution provides for creation of two systems of courts: federal courts and courts of subunits of the Russian Federation. Today both systems are functioning...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
6 January 2005
The basic document of the Russian joint-stock legislation is the RF Federal law On Joint-Stock Companies of 26 December 1995 with latest amendments from 6 April 2004 (hereinafter “the law On Joint-Stock Companies”). Considerable amendments to this Law have been also introduced in 2001...
by Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner of EPA&P St.Petersburg office
3 December 2003
Elections, the independence of the courts and a high-profile furniture scandal converged Monday, as a Moscow City Court judge accused the Prosecutor General's Office of pressuring the court to issue rulings in its favor.
6 July 2003
Russian approach to immunity of the state agencies has not been crystallized yet. There are two aspects to this problem: (i) immunity of Russian public entities in foreign courts and status of their extraterritorial assets and (ii) standing of foreign public entities and international organizations in Russian courts...
by Ilya Nikiforov, magaging partner of EPA&P's St.Petersburg office
6 November 2002
Since inauguration of Russia’s first bankruptcy law in early 1990-ies, insolvency procedures where routinely used as an instrument of hostile takeovers. Provisions of than-current Bankruptcy law that effectively restricted the right of debtors to appeal decisions of courts on interim issues in the course of bankruptcy proceedings were even held unconstitutional (and thus void) by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation...
6 July 2002
During last twenty years there has been a rapid development of financial institutions that can be classified as Islamic in that they do not deal in interest-based transactions...
By Igor Serebriakov, EPA&P senior lawyer
26 September 2001
Dmitry Afanasyev, a member of the board of the Russian-American Council for Business Cooperation and a lawyer with EPAM law firm, believes that Russia stands to gain in economic terms if it takes part in a worldwide antiterrorist operation...
13 October 2000
The recently established Russian-American business cooperation council intends to promote actively the interests of the Russian companies on the U.S. market, a member of the Council executive board Dmitry Afanasyev assured Itar-Tass. He represented the organisation at a conference of Russian and American business leaders here...
