Dear friends!

On the eve of the celebration of the New Year 2022, we would like to share with you the results that we have been able to achieve over the past twelve months. The year was not easy, but thanks to it we have achieved significant achievements in our professional activities.

The beginning of the year was marked by the triumph of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” in the legal rating of the newspaper “Kommersant”, which marked us in 24 legal nominations! Kommersant awarded the Bureau 2nd place among the best legal teams in disputes in courts of general jurisdiction and 6th place in commercial disputes in arbitration courts (Mid-Market), 5th place in the financial and banking sector, 2nd and 4th places in disputes related to the bankruptcy of credit institutions and other legal entities, respectively, 4th place in insurance law, 9th place in family disputes and disputes in the field of energy and natural resources, 10th place in the nominations “Private Capital” and “Construction and Real Estate”. The Bureau also entered the TOP-15 best law firms in Russia in the remaining 15 categories (including High-End arbitration, transport and logistics, tax law, labor and migration law, criminal law, inheritance law).

Based on the results of court disputes won, the Pravo-300 federal rating recognizes our Bureau as one of the best legal consultants in Russia for the third year in a row. And this year Pravo-300 included the Bureau among the leaders in the main legal nominations “Arbitration Proceedings” (Group I), “Dispute Resolution in Courts of General Jurisdiction” (Group I) and “Bankruptcy (including disputes)”. Pravo-300 also named MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” one of the leaders of the legal services market in 2021 in the categories “Criminal Law”, “Family and Inheritance Law”, “Natural Resources and Energy”, “Land Law, Commercial Real Estate and Construction”. We are ranked 8th in Russia by the number of lawyers.

A new benchmark for us was the inclusion in December of this year in the rating of law firms serving wealthy clients, according to Forbes magazine. Forbes declared MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” a leader in family law, as well as a leading company in the categories “Conflict Resolution”, “Anti-crisis management in the framework of bringing to subsidiary responsibility”, “Criminal legal Protection” and “Corporate structuring of personal assets (support of transactions with personal assets)”.

According to the results of the Best Lawyers international rating, Valentina Petrova, First Deputy Head of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure”, was recognized as one of the best lawyers in nomination «Insolvency and reorganization law» (bankruptcy law).

The heads of the departments of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” shared the most important cases of this year, both for the Bureau and for legal practice in general.

The practice of supporting bankruptcy disputes, led by its head Valentina Petrova, notes the successful protection of our principals from being brought to subsidiary liability for several billion rubles! At the same time, acting on the part of principals who found themselves in bankruptcy proceedings on the part of creditors, we managed to bring controlling persons to subsidiary liability and replenish the bankruptcy estate, which means helping principals to return their funds. Lawyers of the Bankruptcy Department have experience of repeated inclusion in the register of creditors’ claims and successful contestation of hundreds of transactions of debtors.

Marina Nikolaenko, the leading specialist of the Bureau for Family Disputes, among the most famous and interesting disputes notes the court decision, which determined the place of residence of the child with the father (the father was happy). In the merits of the Bureau, there was a place for victories in several major disputes over the division of property jointly acquired by spouses.

Contractual practice specialists under the leadership of Alexey Te last year successfully completed major transactions with assets worth billions of rubles in a favorable manner for the principals. Unfortunately, the confidentiality regime does not allow sharing merits in this direction in more detail.

The practice of resolving economic disputes under the leadership of Yakov Bulut this year was marked by a number of major decisions on disputes related to natural resources and energy, among which it is worth highlighting the completion in favor of the principal of the most important dispute for him on the collective claim of opponents in the court of cassation. There have also been successes in protecting the interests of clients from illegal claims. In particular, it was possible to defend the interests of principals in major disputes about debt recovery and unjustified enrichment for several hundred million rubles, and in a number of cases to achieve the conclusion of a settlement agreement or the plaintiff’s refusal from the claim.

Rashid Gitinov, among the remarkable cases of the division he leads, notes the decision of a court of general jurisdiction with multiple parties to the dispute (5 plaintiffs and 2 defendants) to recover a loan in the amount of more than 1.2 billion rubles, despite the evidence of opponents about the lack of money of the loan, as well as the opposite example of a dispute in the arbitration court, which agreed with the Bureau’s arguments about the lack of money in the loan and refused to collect more than 400 million rubles from opponents. Another significant matter is the victory in a dispute in defense of the former head of the company from the claims of his participant while managing the affairs of the company in the amount of losses over 600 million rubles. We also won a dispute with a foreign element, where the steep procedural peak and the complete failure of the opponents’ position were the result of the Bureau’s arguments about the absence of grounds for enforcement of the decisions of the courts of the Republic of Serbia on the territory of the Russian Federation. In this dispute, the Bureau was able to prove the fact of depriving the principal of the right to a fair trial, which contradicts both the public policy of the Russian Federation and the norms of international law and the legislation of the Russian Federation (in case of satisfaction of the application, 4.3 million Euros could be recovered from the Principal of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure”).

Alexander Pogodin, head of the Criminal Law practice, said that the Bureau team managed to achieve the termination of the criminal case due to the lack of corpus delicti against the Principal of the Bureau, accused of embezzlement of funds received under a state contract on an especially large scale by deceiving an organized group (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

The Tyumen branch, headed by Ivan Bychkov, said that thanks to timely and well-coordinated actions, the team managed to resist the state structure and prevent the demolition of a shopping center in the Vologda region. In the bankruptcy dispute, the branch managed to suspend the receipt by the bankruptcy trustee of interest remuneration in the amount of more than 5 billion rubles until the end of settlements with creditors. This is considered the largest remuneration of a manager in the history of Russia. Within the framework of “pro bono”, it was possible to oblige a pharmaceutical company in Ulyanovsk to eliminate the consequences of dumping ethyl bard into the river. The amount of restoration work amounted to about 200 million rubles.

And finally, we returned to our modern, completely renovated office on Zubovsky Boulevard.

MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” congratulates its clients, partners and colleagues on the New Year 2022!

We wish you health and well-being, and we will deal with your legal problems ourselves.

Sincerely, Nikita Filippov, Head of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure”.