ALRUD's partners participated in the XIII St. Petersburg International Legal Forum

The XIII St. Petersburg International Legal Forum was held from May 19 to 21. This is Russia's largest platform for discussions on law and lawmaking among representatives of the legal, business, and law enforcement communities. The Forum is organized by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation and the Roscongress Foundation – the institutions responsible for implementing state policy in the field of justice and for holding major international business events.

ALRUD's partners took part in six sessions discussing the development of contemporary legal science and the modernization of the Russian legal system.

May 19

Sergey Petrachkov, Partner, Head of Dispute Resolution and Restructuring and Bankruptcy practice, International Arbitration, moderated the session Arbitration Institutions for Dispute Resolution when Foreign Businesses Return to Russia. The session was devoted to the particularities of submitting disputes to arbitration according to the structure of foreign business's presence in Russia, what criteria there are when selecting Russian or foreign arbitration institutions, and why mutual recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards is important, including that falling under the 1958 New York Convention.

Sergey Khanaev, Partner of the Corporate and M&A practice, spoke at the session Artificial Intelligence in Corporate Governance Practices and Corporate Law. The discussion covered the problems of using new technologies in various fields, including corporate governance. The participants spoke about monitoring activities in AI, assigning liability for damages arising from decisions made based on recommendations from AI, and regulating the outcomes of AI.

May 21

Maria Ostashenko, Partner of the Data Protection and Cybersecurity practice, participated in the session Personal Data Protection – an incentive or a barrier for technological development. The session covered the idea of balancing technological development with the interests of subjects, the minimization of processed data as the foundation upon which operators can reduce the risks and threats to information security, and the impact of such minimization on the relations between users and organizations.

German Zakharov, Partner of the Crisis Management, Economic Sanctions practice, moderated the session Sanctions Navigator – the Movement of Business within the New Coordinates, which addressed foreign companies' fear of doing business in Russia due to the risk of secondary sanctions. The participants decided what new mechanisms and techniques for minimizing the negative impact of unilateral sanctions could be introduced and how international interaction and dialogue between Russian and foreign businesses, as well as the representatives of governments, could be improved.

Margarita Egiazarova, Partner in the Labor Law practice, moderated the session Labor Law in the Focus of Social Sustainability. It focused on growing social inequality, labor market transformation, the expansion of flexible forms of employment, and the increasing role of jurisprudence. The participants discussed what legal solutions can help reduce social risks for business and the state, whether a new regulatory model is needed for large or infrastructural employers, how to ensure decent working conditions amidst economic instability, where the boundary of acceptable flexibility in labor relations lies, and what role the courts should play in the formation of a predictable legal environment.

Dmitry Kuptsov, Partner of the Dispute Resolution, Restructuring and Bankruptcy practice, took part in the session The Liability of Directors and Officers: The Specifics of How Judicial Practice is Developing in the New Realities and Risk Protection Tools. There, our colleagues discussed how judicial practices on assigning liability to directors and officers is developing in Russia, how effective the existing insurance mechanisms for protecting the interests of executives are, what the most pressing areas of improvement are today, and whether the law is most effective at protecting the interests of directors and officers.

Read more about the forum on the organizer's website.