ALRUD Summer M&A Day 2025: new horizons for mergers and acquisitions

On July 2, 2025, our Corporate and Mergers and Acquisitions practice held its annual ALRUD Summer M&A Day event. Noodome, one of the best venues in Moscow, was chosen for this gala evening. Its veranda offers panoramic views of the main landmark spires of central Moscow.

The guests were treated to a jam-packed official programme: 2 sessions, 7 speakers and presentations on 2 unique digital legal products created by the ALRUD team.

Anton Struchenevsky, Executive Director and Chief Economist of Sberbank, Alexander Zharskiy, Head of ALRUD's Corporate and M&A Practice, and Anton Dzhuplin, Partner of ALRUD's Corporate and M&A Practice, took part in Session 1: Expert Dialogue: M&A and Macroeconomic Trends with ALRUD.

The experts held a detailed discussion on the impact of the macroeconomic situation on business and M&A deals in Russia, taking note of the major changes in investors' priorities and the emergence of new risks. Particular attention was paid to key legal trends in M&A, including increased government regulation, the formation of new corporate structures and the evolving approaches to such transactions.

The final discussion was devoted to forecasts about the future of the M&A market in Russia. The attendees highlighted the key growth drivers and potential challenges facing the industry in 2025–2026.

Session 2 – AI: Golden Fleece or Pandora's Box? was kicked off by Sergey Khanaev, Partner of ALRUD's Corporate and M&A practice and Artificial Intelligence industry. The discussion on the application of AI in the practice of law was carried forward by Alexey Masyutin, Head of the Department of Financial Technologies and Data Analysis at the Computer Science Faculty of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Ruslana Karimova, Senior Associate in ALRUD's Antitrust practice, and Pavel Ravun, ALRUD's IT Director.

AI is no longer a novelty among well-established companies, particularly when it comes to generating texts, pictures, and creative ideas. However, if applied correctly, it is possible to turn a neural network into a precision instrument that a business can use to enhance its operations and automate various routine processes. One example is ALRUD GPT, which Sergey Khanaev and Pavel Ravun presented, using the generation of responses from a corporate neural network as a demonstrative example.

ALRUD can now serve as your personal assistant in the complex world of compliance. Ruslana Karimova spoke about the compliance platform we developed in-house just for our clients. You can take courses in various fields: data protection, antitrust law, labour law and more.

After all these fruitful discussions, the attendees engaged in some informal networking. The evening panorama of Moscow from the vantage point of Noodome created an exemplary atmosphere for professional networking, from which new ideas and connections were born.