26 June 2008
Russian lawyers initiate re-integration of the CIS legal space

June 26, 2008, Saint-Petersburg - Third CIS Local Counsel Forum was launched today in Saint-Petersburg. For the first time after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 200 heads of leading national law firms from the CIS and other countries gathered together on the Russian soil. The Forum is hosted by the leading Russian law firm EPAM.

The aim of the Forum is to bring together representatives of the leading CIS and international legal firms, as well as business lawyers from Russian and international companies to create opportunities for long-term co-operation.

"Our mission is to help legal communities of the CIS to overcome dissolutions and to renew the dialogue on a modern, market basis by bringing together the heads of leading national CIS law firms in Petersburg", said Mr. Dimitry Afanasiev, the Chairman of EPAM, during the press-conference at the Forum. 

"This Forum is another step forward to the integration of the CIS legal space", - he said during his meeting with media. - "I personally believe that it is necessary to restore the role of the Russian language as a tool for carrying out the deals and for dispute resolution between the businesses from the CIS countries. The Russian language has to become the means of communication between the CIS lawyers. We also have to seek to establish the selection of Russian, and not English, law as neutral in inter-CIS transactions; we also want them to use Russian arbitration courts (international and commercial arbitration) for dispute settlements. This would be both: more simple for the CIS lawyers whose legal systems are similar to Russian Law and cheaper for businessmen from the CIS countries than London Arbitration Court".

The CIS Local Counsel Forum is the largest platform in the post-Soviet area for wide-scale meeting of lawyers specialising in the area of the business and corporate law. It takes place annually in different CIS countries. Since the inaugural gathering in Kiev in June 2006, the Forum has become an informal club of managing and senior partners of leading CIS law firms. The Second Forum was successfully held in Baku.

For more information please contact:
Olga Frolova
Tel in St.Petesburg: : +7 812 322 9681
Tel in Moscow: +7 495 935 80 10
Mobile: +7 926 217 7089
Olga_Frolova@epam.ru