#12 December 2015

In focus – Anti-Corruption

The increasing costs of doing business, generating constraints in access to public resources, undermining the rule of law, delegitimizing the state — this is a quite shallow view of the impact of corruption. In response to huge pressure from within the country and the outside world, Ukraine took the path of adopting special anti-corruption national legislation and establishing appropriate institutional capacities...

With the support of Tax Regulation

The BEPS Action Plan (Base Erosion and Profit Fiction) worked out by G-20, provides new requirements to transfer pricing documentation. “This is due to the fact that the tax authorities, while monitoring transaction taxation, experience difficulties in understanding the fact as to how a product or service value chain is formed, says Yaroslav Romanchuk, managing partner of International Legal Center EUCON. This fact gives opportunities for abusive practices and the tax authorities try to fill this gap”...

Expert Opinion

Trends in Anti-Corruption Regulation

Lana V. Sinichkina, Mariia V. Baranovych, Yevgeniya V. Ocheretko

In the last two years the anti-corruption legislation of Ukraine has been drastically amended. The most significant influence on business operations should be expected from recent developments in this sphere.

New Act on Corruption Prevention

On 26 April 2015 the new Corruption Prevention Act of 14 October 2014 came into force. This Act stipulates a number of limitations and requirements for private companies and their employees...

In Re

Protection of Private Sector Whistleblowers in Ukraine

Daniyil E. Fedorchuk

The English language term “whistleblower” is generally understood as referring to an individual informant (employee or civil servant) reporting abuse, corruption, gross mismanagement or other accounts of non-compliance committed by his/her employer (either private or public) (“sounding the alarm”).

Ukraine saw gloomy times of the totalitarian dictatorship with mass persecutions and arbitrary executions, often following false reports from secret informants (who included neighbors, co-workers, and even family members), and public opinion with regard to whistleblowers has historically been controversial...

Challenge of Compliance in Ukraine

Mariana V. Marchuk

1. Significance of compliance for business in Ukraine

The term compliance has emerged in its current sense in the business environment in the USA within the last 30-40 years and refers to the system of internal regulations and measures implemented by commercial and non-commercial entities to ensure adherence to laws, as well as to specific industry standards, trade customs and regulations. Currently, in international business, this term also covers the system of control an entity uses to ensure that its directors, managers and other employees, as well as contractors and authorized representatives, adhere to all regulations applicable to the business, whether local or foreign... 

News

Deals

DLA Piper advised Crown Agents 

Asters — legal counsel to International Finance Corporation

AEQUO and CMS support the deal on acquisition a stake in Cilkum Holding

QBE sells its insurance operations to Fairfax

Sayenko Kharenko — legal counsel to EBRD

Cases

Masha and the Bear postcard case set for new trial

Deutsche Bank is fined for violating US sanctions

Currency peg in loan declared illegal

Draft

Two Drafts on ensuring transparency of AMCU activity adopted in the first reading

New Labor Code passed in first reading

Law Digest

Preventive measures

Transparency of the AMCU

Corrupt assets

Chamber News

Meeting with Valeria Gontareva, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine

Chamber Energy Committee Meeting

 

UBA News

1st UBA Forum on Insolvency Law: Debt. Restructuring. Bankruptcy

Biznews

Doing Business

Business Ombudsman Council saved businesses  UAH 152 million

Banking & Finance

S&P has assigned default rating to Kiev

M & A

European Commission clears Avago's acquisition of Broadcom

Pfizer and Allergan to merge

Military Establishment

Foreigners may be enrolled to armed forces

 

Argument

How Vessels are Arrested in Ukraine without Arrest

Sergey A. Kalitenko, Sergey A. Sushko

The “selfless” actions of law-enforcement bodies in Ukraine with the aim of fighting to ensure compliance of legislation eventually resulted in manifold gross violation of the law. Furthermore, such actions on the part of law-enforcement officers may serve as a reason for serious international investigations and conflicts. Let us review the situation that took place in detail.

We all remember the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in spring 2014. Of course, both Ukraine and the international community disapprove of such actions and treat them as gross violation of the international law...

Cover Story

Keeping a Cool Head

The criminal justice system in Ukraine has to be profoundly transformed as the policy of harmonization with the EU is at the heart of every reform in the country. Many politically sensitive questions that we asked our speakers Vitaliy Serdyuk and Olga Prosyanyuk, partners of AVER LEX attorneys at law, are considered with a precise legal point of view. The conversation probably proved that the first rule of a defense attorney is to keep a cool head in this sophisticated area of criminal justice...

Hot Issue

BEPS: New Aspects of PE Definition

Oksana A. Borovets, Olga V. Anufriieva

On 5 October 2015 the OECD published its final package of 15 action plans designed to prevent tax base erosion and profit shifting. One of the actions, which could become relevant to Ukrainian companies in the near future, is changes to the permanent establishment (further — “PE”) concept.

Why the BEPS project amends the PE definition

A foreign company may have different levels of business presence in Ukraine and some of the activities may be considered as a PE creating a taxable presence in Ukraine...

How To

How to Punish a Foreign Company without it Breaching Ukrainian Legislation

Dmitriy L. Sykaluk,
an associate with DLF attorneys-at-law

One of the most common kinds of violation of Ukrainian currency legislation is breach of the import-export transactions procedure. Breach of this procedure is not always a consequence of a fault of a business entity, including a foreign company. It is also worth mentioning that sanctions for breach of the import-export transaction procedure may significantly complicate the activities of a foreign company and block its supplies to Ukraine...

Crux

Legislative Update

The first days of November of the Ukrainian Parliament will stick in the memories for consideration of a bulk of long-expected documents. Thus, in the first reading was approved the Draft Labor Code of Ukraine as well as several Draft Acts in the sphere of antimonopoly regulation were adopted (No.2431, No.2168a). In this section our editorial staff have enlisted experts to comment upon the key novelties of the new Labor Code and to discuss the recent changes in antimonopoly regulations...

News

Lawyers News

Clifford Chance Kyiv re-established as independent law firm Redcliffe Partners

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