#3 March 2020

In focus – International Crime

Criminal violations have exceeded the borders of states and continents. Criminal justice requires serious  coordination by national law-enforcement authorities, smooth mechanisms of cooperation and exceptional communication.

Expert Opinion

International Crimes and Domestic Criminal Law

Sergiy Smirnov

International crime is a negative social phenomenon detrimental to the development and national security of individual states. It has overstepped the borders of states and turned into a serious international threat that requires cooperation between states globally...

In Re

Foreign Powers Investigating Ukrainians

Sergiy Grebenyuk, Orest Stasiuk

Ukraine does not seem to be short of anti-corruption cases. However, local law-enforcement authorities are not the only player in Ukrainian anti-corruption enforcement. Every now and then foreign authorities start prosecuting Ukraine-related corruption cases. In recent years cases with a Ukrainian nexus have been spotted in Europe, America and even Asia...

Request to Remove Information Regarding a Person from Interpol’s Database

Denys Nienov

Over the last six years the activities of Interpol in Ukraine have been making big news, which is, first and foremost, due to a number of politicians and officials fleeing its territory, and due to the efforts made by Ukrainian law-enforcement authorities to locate them using this organization’s channels and means.

The main function of Interpol is to create and maintain various information bases through the assistance of which law-enforcement agencies of 194 member countries may cooperate...

News

Deals

Baker McKenzie assisted BSTDB

Kinstellar — Ukrainian legal counsel to DEG

AVELLUM advised on Ukraine’s new benchmark euro-denominated notes

Joint venture transaction between TIS Group and DP World

Baker McKenzie advised shareholders of Biopharma

Sayenko Kharenko advised on landmark EUR 1.25 billion Eurobond issue by Ukraine

AVELLUM advised on Vodafone Ukraine acquisition and Eurobond financings

Cases

International Court of Justice obliged Russia to pay USD 50 billion to YUKOS shareholders

Court ordered Google to disclose identity of user who left negative feedback

Ukroboronprom won proceedings against Russian company

Deposit Guarantee Fund wins Ukrinbank case

Tesla granted permission to cut down forest at plant construction site in Germany

Draft

Parliament took step towards exempting self-employed persons from UST payment

Legalization of lobbying activities in Ukraine proposed

Law digest

Parliament cut rental fee for mining amber

Penalties for violating labor law reduced

Cabinet of Ministers approved Regulations on Financial Supervision Office

National Bank allowed banks not to disclose all data on services for another 3 months

President signed law on single legal entity for Customs and Tax Services

The Chamber

AmCham Ukraine President Andy Hunder met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Andy Hunder, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, held a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on 31 January, to deliver the voice of business in the course of the Secretary’s visit to Ukraine...

Biznews

Infrastructure

Rail provider UZ and Deutsche Bahn signed memorandum of understanding and strategic partnership

Regulatory

Apple fined EUR 25 million in France for slowing iPhone

Telecommunications

EU aims to limit Huawei access to building of 5G networks

Lifecell reported UAH 1.1 billion of loss despite rise in revenue

Banking & Finance

JP Morgan predicts discount rate cut to 7.5% p.a. by year end

Deposit Guarantee Fund sold banks’ assets worth UAH 265 million

The EU and Ukraine signed agreement on allocation of EUR 26 million for small-size farming

Competition

AMCU imposed fines of UAH 8.7 billion in 2019

Sanctions

BlaBlaCar halted operations in Crimea due to EU sanctions against Russia

On 13 December 2019, the European Council in Brussels approved the continuation of economic sanctions against Russia.

Asset Recovery

Ukraine ranked among top 5 countries in terms of asset recovery requests

 

 

Cover Story

Useful Mechanism

The white-collar crime practice is gaining a more internationalized flavor along with the overall international nature of business and law. With the new wave of criminal proceedings in our country, criminal defense attorneys face the necessity to apply the procedures of international cooperation, extradition and wanted lists. Olga Prosyanyuk and Vitaliy Serdyuk, partners of Kyiv-based AVER LEX attorneys at law are confident that the quality of work is crucial for both sides, prosecution and defense, when it turns to usage of these special mechanisms. Referring to recent practice, both outlined that the State of Ukraine often abuses possibilities provided by Interpol because of the deep background of political prosecutions.

 

Argument

The Role and Challenges of the Whistleblower System in the Corporate Sector

Nikolay Kolesnikov

The concept of the “whistleblower” (WB) system, also known as a hotline, has different meanings and interpretations. Put simply, this is the most powerful way of communicating and providing feedback on a company’s operations.

In the corporate sector, and especially in international companies, this is an essential internal tool that can immediately highlight any violations or wrongdoings that may occur within the organization. Moreover, this system is highly effective not only as a means of detecting something that has already happened, but also as a preventative measure against fraud or other integrity-related issues. In order to make it effective, end users of this system should be independent departments directly accountable to shareholders or the Supervisory Board depending on the size of the organization...

Maritime Piracy as International Crime and its Influence on Shipping

Yuriy Sergeyev, Iryna Radkovska

Despite the fact that piracy has a long history, it still exists and is growing. Actually, in the late 1800s piracy was recognized as the first international crime, and pirates were declared “hostes humani generis” (enemies of humanity). While hundreds of years ago pirates united into small groups only, today piracy is a form of organized crime and has a number of large criminal networks at local, state and international levels involved not only in piracy but in other transnational crimes, such as smuggling, arm trafficking, money laundering, corruption, etc. Piracy hot spots also change and expand from the Caribbean to the Strait of Malacca, the South China Sea, the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of Somalia into the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea (Gulf of Aden).Therefore, maritime piracy is a threat to international peace and security, economic prosperity not only of corporations or entities in the marine industry but to ordinary consumers...

A Case For Setting Up Ukraine International Financial Centre

Syed Mujtaba Hussain

Every nation has guaranteed its people the basic right to economic development, sustainable growth and a better life. Developed nations can fulfil this promise, whereas developing nations struggle hard to achieve these objectives. It is the availability of finance that ultimately paves the way for economic growth and development.

Developed nations can tap the global funds with ease because they have robust legal systems, with effective enforcement mechanisms that guarantee much-needed protection to international investors. Developing nations lack such a system and are not able to tap global funds with great ease. They seem to rely heavily on aid from international donor agencies that follow very stringent guidelines and may not be amenable to finance most development projects. Due to the sheer paucity of available finance,  developing nations take longer than usual to fulfil their part of the promise...

Business Lunch

Healthy Competition

The Velvet Revolution took place in Armenia in 2018, which changed the country and society. After a period of calm watching the course of the new political leaders in power, international investors confirm strong interest in the country. The legal market went through a clear out, which is irreversible when healthy, intense competition takes place. Vardan Stepanyan, managing partner of K&P Law Firm, explained the background of ongoing changes in Armenia, which obviously come from a mindset shift rather than purely legislative reforms...

Crux

Legal Digest

During the past month the UJBL editorial team has monitored draft laws, amendments and other legislative initiatives that appeared to be highly significant in the juridical field. To name a few, the “land market law” that is currently occupying Parliament’s time, the adopted Draft Law No. 1210 On Deoffshorization and Improving the Administration of Taxation, and several acts of the National Bank of Ukraine. We asked lawyers to provide their expert opinions on these and other important issues below.

 

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