Venue (#11 November 2015)

In-House Challenges in Practice

On 13 October 2015 Yuridicheskaya Practika Publishing held the III In-House Counsel Forum. The event brought together practising lawyers and partners of Ukrainian firms, heads of legal departments of leading Ukrainian companies, representatives of public authorities and courts. This year the sessions covered a wide spectrum of issues, like management of legal department, court practice, compliance, tax and banking matters.

Management prospects and realities

After the opening remarks by Denys Myrgorodskiy, president of Dynasty Law Firm, the lively discussion touched upon the topic of cooperation between law firms and legal departments. As was mentioned by Alexander Petrichenko, director of legal department, New Products Group, the legal department of any enterprise means a synergy of lawyers’ intellectual work, that helps to reach business goals, with their knowledge and experience. Mr. Petrichenko underlined the necessity for an electronic system of document flow. According to the speaker, the most comfortable and optimal way for storing data is cloud storage. Among its advantages: security of information on abroad servers, minimization of unlawful removal of electronic media, mobility and easiness of business processes support. In her turn, Alena Galkina, head of the legal department, Bayer Ukraine, shared her opinion about the obligatory qualities of a lawyer as business-partner. Such a lawyer should be oriented towards business (business strategy, budgeting, protection of business interest inside the company), be ready for the joint responsibility and represent the business as such. Inna Krushchinskaya, director of legal department, FOZZY GROUP, analyzed the points of education, development and motivation of the employees. According to Ms. Krushchinskaya, at the present time about 20% of employees are responsible for 80% of highly-qualified legal work. The other 80% carry out routine work of the same type. Thus, the priority in education and development should belong to these 20% of key employees. Speaking about compliance policy, the legal adviser of Microsoft Ukraine, Olga Prokopovych, gave an example that in their company they try to train not only the employees but also the firm’s partners according to compliance principles used in Microsoft all over the world. “We have various trainings adapted to different roles (financial, work with partners) as well as trainings for finding solutions to problems in the regions with corruption risks”, she noted. Ms. Prokopovych also spoke about internal communication and the procedure of control and compliance. Maksym Lavrynovych, partner of Lavrynovych & Partners, expressed the opinion that there is no one (common) standard in relations between in-house counsels and clients. The most important thing here is mutual trust. Summing up, Denys Myrgorodskiy mentioned that involvement of in-house counsel is estimated unilaterally — law firms just compete between each other for the client’s attention.

Sectors under review

The prospects of the Ukrainian tax system and compliance were under review during the first concurrent session. The last legislative initiatives of tax reform were analyzed by Andrii Zhurzhii, first deputy chairman of the Committee on Taxation and Customs Policy of Parliament. Speaking about the latest tendencies of international tax planning Max Lebedev, managing associate of GOLAW, underlined that about 85% of companies in Ukraine had not even heard about the BEPS Action Plan (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting). Continuing the theme of international planning, Karina Pavlyuk, senior associate of AstapovLawyers, acquainted participants with the latest tendencies in this sphere. She stopped at aspects of automatic exchange of information and the expected consequences for companies. The speaker reminded that the global collection of information will start from 1 January 2016.

Alexey Khomyakov, partner of  Asters law firm, touched upon the topic of tax reform. In particular, Mr. Khomyakov suggested that participants think about the necessity of a single sales tax. Yuriy Zaluskyy, counsel of Baker & McKenzie, focused on the criteria of tax policy work over the previous year, in particular, “whether Ukraine needs tax policy”. Yaroslav Romanchuk, managing partner of International Legal Center EUCON, reminded that basic source documents are one of the biggest problems that lawyers face during court disputes.

Within the framework of her presentation, Olga Prosyanyuk, AVER LEX managing partner, touched upon the point of criminal legal risks. Ms. Prosyanyuk mentioned the Top 5 tendencies of the new season: raider seizer of business, pseudo raider seizure using the names of a volunteer battalions, mass use of political information and social networks, increasing crime in banking sector, the widespread “fight against terrorism” in business. Certain aspects of reform of the Prosecutor-General’s Office were analyzed by Elena Perzova, head of the legal practice at Pavlenko Legal Group. Significant interest from the audience went to proposal made by Ivan Legeida, managing partner of PLP Law Group, of debt collection upon registration of property right to mortgaged property. Of no less interest was the speech by Maksym Kopeychykov, partner, Ilyashev & Partners, about the aspects of dispute resolution with problem banks.

Challenges and prospects

The last section, “Business 2015: Challenges and Prospects”, was moderated by Armen Chachaturyan, partner of Asters. The point of business regulation was touched upon by Ihor Olekhov, partner, Baker & McKenzie. Among the main reasons for the failure in trust towards the banking sector, Mr. Olekhov said, was disrespect towards legislation and legal proceedings. In her turn, Anneta Natanzan, compliance-officer of Metinvest Holding, answering the question on whether an anti-corruption program in private enterprises should be created, gave arguments in favor of such a program. Summing up, Olexander Onufrienko, director of legal department, KINTO, underlined the fact that the present situation in our country is characterized with rather chaotic legislation. In such conditions even small business can’t refrain from using a lawyers services. That is why the demand for lawyers remains at such a high level.

At the end of the day within the framework of the event the 50 Best Legal Departments of Ukraine awards ceremony was held.

 

Best Legal Departments-2015
Nomination Winner
The best legal department of Ukraine Metinvest Holding
The best legal department of an agrarian company Mironivsky Hliboproduct
The best legal department of a food company Danone Dairy Ukraine
The best legal department of a trade company FOZZY GROUP
The best legal department of a telecommunications company Kyivstar
The best legal department of a metallurgical company ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih
The best legal department in chemicals and pharmaceuticals Rivneazot
The best legal department of an energy company Kyivoblenergo
The best legal department of a bank Alfa-Bank
The best in-house lawyer on taxation Galyna Dyakiv, deputy head of legal department, PJCS Ukrnafta
The best in-house lawyer on dispute settlement Natalya Fedik, director of legal department, PJSC Diamantbank
The best in-house lawyer on intellectual property Iryna Dyachuk, head of legal support operations department, FOZZY GROUP
The best compliance officer Olga Lukianova, head of legal department, officer of legal standards and policy compliance, Henkel Ukraine
The best head of a legal department Andrey Osipov, head of legal department, Astelit
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