CIS Local Counsel Forum

In 2006, our firm successfully organized the first ever wide-scale meeting of the international legal community with the best Local Counsel law firms from the CIS economic region. The first CIS Local Counsel Forum was held in Kiev in June 2006 hosted by our firm, the second meeting - in Baku, Azerbaijan, in June 2007 hosted by Fina LLP, the third - in St. Petersburg, Russia on June 25-27, 2008, hosted by Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, and the fourth - in Kiev on 24-26 June 2009 again hosted by our firm. The fifth anniversary meeting was held on June 23-25, 2010 in Minsk, hosted by Vlasova Mikhel & Partners.

For more information click here

Leading Counsel Network (LCN)

In September 2009, our firm became a founding member and first rotating Chair of the CIS Leading Counsel Network (LCN), a professional network of nine leading law firms across the CIS economic region offering clients integrated multijurisdictional legal advice. The network brings together law firms in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and aims to combine highest international professional standards with a unique local insight in the regions, which are increasingly attracting international investments. The alliance enhances the cross-border capabilities of member firms in the CIS region and offers clients integrated teams, unparalleled resource base and access to the best local knowledge in each country.

Please click here for the details
and for the press coverage

Legislative Alerts

June 2010
The most significant recent changes as well as proposed changes to Ukrainian laws affecting business and investment environment.

For brief overview of key provisions of the laws please click here

23 December 2009
On 18 December 2009, the Ukrainian Tax Administration cancelled its 2004 clarifications regarding foreign individuals' taxation and their registration as Ukrainian tax residents and issued new clarifications on 23 December 2009. The new clarifications elaborate on current practices in applying the legislation regarding non-residents' tax payments and their registration as Ukrainian tax residents.

For brief overview of the clarifications please click here

25 November 2009
New Law "On Amending Certain Laws of Ukraine with the Purpose of Overcoming Negative Impacts of the Financial Crisis" seriously affects investment and currency regime in Ukraine.

For brief overview of key provisions of the Law please click here

Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends,

Welcome to the home page of RULG-Ukrainian Legal Group, P.A. This site aims to provide you with detailed information about our firm, the legal services we provide, our attorneys, and important legal developments in Ukraine and the CIS economic region.

Traditionally, in this letter, we provide an overview of our firm's news and achievements over the past year and the first six month of the current year. In 2009 the global economic crises seriously affected Ukraine, our firm reacted with a comprehensive program of modernization reforms and anti-crisis strategy. We reorganized and streamlined our practice, adopted important internal procedures aimed at further improving the quality and efficiency of our work, continued investing in training our lawyers, and re-launched our modernized brand and website. In these challenging economic times, we are more than ever committed to providing the best value in services to our clients, doing what it takes to help them withstand the crisis, and being their loyal and competent legal partner in Ukraine and the CIS.

In 2009 we co-founded the CIS Leading Counsel Network (LCN), a professional network of nine leading law firms across the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) economic region offering clients integrated multijurisdictional legal advice. The network brings together law firms in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine, and aims to combine highest international professional standards with a unique local insight in the regions, which are increasingly attracting international investments. The alliance enhances the cross-border capabilities of member firms in the CIS region and offers clients integrated teams, unparalleled resource base and access to the best local knowledge in each country. Please read more here about this exciting and important development.

As always, our most exciting and rewarding experience has been in working on behalf of our clients. We have further developed our natural resources and production sharing agreements practice. Ukrainian Law Firms 2009: Handbook for Foreign Clients, published by Yuridicheskaya Practika, features our article summarizing the Licensing Regime for the use of subsoil in Ukraine. Our clients and competitors alike praise our law firm for its profound experience in such practice areas as investment, mergers & acquisitions, agriculture and land, media, bankruptcy, labor and intellectual property protection, antimonopoly and competition legislation, and many other areas. We are especially proud that three of our partners were selected in six areas of practice (corporate, mergers & acquisitions, antitrust, arbitration and mediation, labor and employment and energy and natural resources law) in the inaugural edition of the Ukrainian edition of Best Lawyers®, which is regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence in the U.S. and increasingly around the world. The 2009 edition of the Which Lawyer? Yearbook lists our firm among only twenty Ukrainian law firms and rates our firm "recognized" in the field of competition/anti-trust law, "recommended" in both corporate/M&A and dispute resolution and "highly recommended" in labor and employee benefits. Moreover, several of our attorneys were individually honored by being designated as "recommended" or "highly recommended" in various practice categories. Chambers describes us as "traditionally Westernised in outlook" and acknowledged that RULG-Ukrainian Legal Group, P.A., has always been recognized as having "particular strength in the IP field" ". Additionally, such top legal directories as The Legal 500, FindLaw.com, Lawyers.com and others have all written up our practice.

Our attorneys have been actively involved in various professional activities: attending and speaking at international conferences, publishing articles on various aspects of Ukrainian law and participating in professional organizations and associations. Information on these activities is available on the respective pages of this site. Professional and mass media outlets often seek our attorneys' opinions on a broad range of legal topics, and to share these opinions with you we have added a "RULG in the Media" page to our Web site.

2009 saw the continuing success of the CIS Local Counsel Forum, an informal network of managing partners of the leading business law firms of the CIS economic region, which our firm organized back in 2006. The fourth meeting of the Forum was successfully hosted by our firm in Kiev on 24-26 June 2009, and the fifth meeting will be held in Minsk on June 23-25, 2010. The Forum brings together more than 200 top business lawyers from all CIS countries and from around the world. Detailed information about the Forum is available at http://www.rulg.com/cisforum/.

We look forward to having more opportunities to assist you in your business endeavors in Ukraine and other CIS countries. We appreciate the time you are taking to review our home page and hope its contents prove useful. Please feel free to contact us with your comments, questions, or suggestions.

Sincerely yours,
Irina Paliashvili
President and Senior Counsel

© 2009 RULG - Ukrainian Legal Group, P.A.