Russia, CIS and Central Europe

Chadbourne has maintained a strong presence in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS, or former Soviet Union) since 1990, when we were one of the first foreign law firms to open an office in Moscow. Our practice comprises offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Almaty and London.

Chadbourne has a distinctive ability to draw upon the legal and intellectual resources and experience of lawyers situated throughout the region, and also throughout the Firm. Additionally, we have affiliated offices in Azerbaijan, Belarus and the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as an extensive network of relationships with leading attorneys in major cities throughout Russia and the CIS.

Our attorneys are frequently listed in publications such as Chambers Global—The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, Euromoney’s Expert Guides to the World’s Leading Lawyers and European Legal Experts as leading lawyers in the fields of corporate and commercial law, banking and finance, natural resources, energy, and litigation. For example, this year Chambers Global ranked 19 Chadbourne attorneys as leaders in their field, including all partners in the Moscow office, as well as the managing partners in Kyiv and Almaty.

We have advised clients on complex first-of-a-kind transactions, as well as on day-to-day operations. Our major practice areas include corporate and commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, capital markets (including private placements and public offerings by local and foreign issuers), banking (both regulatory and transactional, including project finance), litigation and bankruptcy.

Our clients are active in key segments of the economies of Russia and the CIS, including oil and gas, mining, transportation, manufacturing, retail, pulp and paper, real estate and communications and technology sectors. We have been assisting these and other clients on secured and unsecured financings since the early 1990s, in structuring and negotiating joint ventures since the enactment of the first laws on joint ventures in the late 1980s, and in privatizing enterprises since the first privatization laws were passed in the early 1990s.

Representative Experience

LNG Project Financing
Gazprom
Structure of the commercial arrangements for the multi-phased multibillion dollar Shtokman LNG project, including upstream ownership and operations, ownership and operation of the liquefaction trains, and downstream marketing and trading of LNG and regasification.
Chapter 15 Ancillary Proceeding
Official Receiver of Yukos Oil Company
Representation of the official receiver appointed in the bankruptcy case of one of the largest producers of oil and gas in Russia, in the first major test of cross-border insolvency under new Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Cross-Border Telecom Acquisition
VimpelCom
$434 million acquisition by a Russian telecom company of the main Armenian telephone company.
[ more representative experience ]


Related Practice Areas

Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring
Capital Markets
Corporate
Finance
Litigation
Mergers and Acquisitions
Private Funds
Project Finance
Real Estate

Related Industries

Communications, Media and Technology
Energy
Mining and Metals
Transportation

Related Regions

Azerbaijan and the Caucasus
Europe
Kazakhstan
Russian Federation
Ukraine
 

Worldwide Contact

Jennifer Handz
Moscow
+7 (495) 974-2424 or +1 (212) 408-1190

Local Office Contacts

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