Today Moscow hosted the conference 'Commercial Real Estate. Top Trends 2011. Investment Potential. Legal and Tax Issues', organized by the Moscow Times newspaper. Ekaterina Medeyko, Senior Associate, and Maxim Mozgov, attorney, spoke at the conference.

The conference included an open discussion of trends, plans, latest transactions, as well as the legal support of investment projects by leading players on the real estate market: investors, bankers, developers and consultants.

Ekaterina Medeyko, senior associate of EPAM, made a presentation on Changes in the Real Estate Law in 2011 (Trends and Surprises). Ekaterina covered the 2011 federal law change trends, including land, town planning, civil relations and the power supply areas.

Maxim Mozgov, attorney with EPAM, presented his report on Commercial Real Estate Lease Legal Issues & Difficulties Related to Breach of Lease. Maxim covered the difficulties faced by the lessor in cases of a lease breach, including debt repayment call, penalty claim, deriving unjust enrichment, termination of agreement by lessor, application of security deposit and charging interest for using third-party funds, as well as citing examples from the court case history.