Digest 03 St. Petersburg International Legal Forum is a unique international conference that brings together the leading minds of the legal profession. The annual SPBILF, founded in 2011, is organized under the support of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation and the President of the Russian Federation. Over the years, the SPBILF has emerged as a foremost international platform for discussing a broad range of urgent questions confronting the contemporary international community of legal professionals.
We are glad to present you the third issue of the Digest dedicated to the results of the Guest Conferences under the auspices of St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.
1. This Issue is dedicated to the results of the Guest Conferences under the auspices of the Forum in 2013. For this reason, we would like to ask you about the significance of the Guest Conferences in general. How did this idea appear? What are the Conferences designed to? How do you choose the venue?
Since its foundation three years ago St. Petersburg International Legal Forum has become a relevant international event being considered by the global legal community as one of the main platforms where to discuss the issues of law and law enforcement. Last year the Forum brought together representatives of 63 countries, and 80% of the delegates were corporate counsels, bars and legal advisers what sustained the highly practical significance of the event.
After the three Forums we noticed the will of participants to continue the discussion on relevant important issues in a narrower bilateral format. Besides, discussions showed a number of common approaches in regulation of many issues meanwhile law drafts’ implementation and development stages differ from country to country. That is how we got an idea of having the Guest Conferences under the auspices of the Forum. Russia is developing dynamically; Russian legislation is also enhancing and becoming more open, attractive for investment and development of businesses. Nevertheless, information on these changes isn’t always available in the foreign states, and sometimes the data our colleagues acquire is corrupted and incomplete, with incorrect commentaries. This fact restrains economic relationship for it is the wrong legal risk assessment that doesn’t allow a transaction to succeed. In my opinion, an essential goal of the Guest Conferences is the first-hand presentation of the Russian legislation and law enforcement with a provided opportunity to pose practical questions to representatives of government agencies, judges, heads of legal departments of large companies, law firm partners. It is crucial that due to the bilateral conference format we can see the symmetric presentation of the partner country’s regulation what contributes markedly to experience of our delegates and makes them familiar with peculiarities of another country’s legal system from a practical viewpoint.
From the very beginning we have had an idea of making a dialogue between the best lawyers. Quite literally, I can say the Conferences gather ‘crème de la crème’ from the both countries what affords unique opportunities for building serious professional and business contacts. In 2013 St. Petersburg International Legal Forum visited the Great Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, France and Hungary. I shall mention that the Guest Conferences do also promote the Forum, attract new active successful participants. The questions discussed during the Conferences in London, the Hague and Rome were put on the agenda of the III Forum and made the programme much more interesting for all the participants. In general, the Guest Conferences proved their effectiveness, and in 2014 this initiative will be further developed. We are planning to hold a Conference in Kazakhstan, and Asia is considered as a top-priority direction of the year.
2. The topic of the each Guest Сonference is unique. In London speakers were addressing finances and investment; in the Hague – mediation and arbitration; in Italy – cultural heritage and its protection. In Paris you emphasized notarial system. How do you choose topics for the Conferences?
The format of the Guest Conference requires being very attentive to the choice of topics. We are interested in making a dialogue as fruitful as possible, and consequently, we choose a topic which will be attractive for the lawyers from the two parties of the Conference. We should also form a representative delegation of the Russian lawyers. These people are very busy and expensive; they wouldn’t spend their time on travelling just for fun. Such professionals would come only when they are sure they will learn new skills and make useful contacts. Our goal is to give opportunities of professional and corporate development that the discussion on the different states’ legal systems actually supports. Obviously, a choice of concrete topics is quite simple: where to discuss finance and investment if not in London? In the meantime Rome is a perfect place to debate on protection of cultural heritage.
The exchange of experiences and knowledge with foreign colleagues allows enhancing the competence of all the delegates. Why this goal is also so relevant is that skilled lawyers make basis for economic growth, improvement of public administration system, and any other good changes.
3. Every year the main Forum brings together approximately 3000 delegates. It is a massive success but there are still so many lawyers who are not able to attend the event. Do you plan to widen the Forum or to look for some other platforms, for example, online?
The popularity of the Forum is increasing from year to year. So, the audience also grows as well as the number of applications. The event will be expanding though we don’t plan to make it the largest one. It is more important that discussions are led by the first class lawyers, professionals of the same qualification level, whether they are law firm partners, in-house attorneys, ministers of justice or judges. We will do our best to preserve the high standards of discussions based on the speakers’ competence and experience.
For this reason one of the growth options is a search of some other platforms, for example, on the Internet. On 18-21 June discussion sessions will be broadcasted live online and after the Forum the videos will be available on the website. We do also pay attention to social networking services, as Twitter or FB, update information, and publish releases on the Guest Conferences, discussion sessions and meetings. The St. Petersburg International Legal Forum Digest is another online platform for communication with the Forum’s participants throughout the year.
4. In the first issue of the Digest Yuri Liubimov mentioned some topics which, according to him, will become the key topics to discuss at the Forum 2014. It is well known that in addition to classical topics the Forum usually brings up issues that have just started going into lawyers’ everyday life. What are the innovative topics to discuss at the Forum?
Basically, the programme of the Forum is almost ready. It really has classical topics, such as compliance, corporate practice, arbitration practice, M&A, standards of legal profession, finance and investments, competition and trade. As for innovations, there will be a new track entitled Smart Society and we are planning to discuss long-term, even prophetic issues like the future of intellectual property or legal aspects of the modern Urban Studies. Right now we’re working with moderators in order to define the list of speakers for every session as well as topics to highlight. I would like the Forum had no unexciting discussions. Our goal is to make every topic crucial and innovative from the perspective of exchange of unique skills, ideas and presentations and to provide conditions for the top-level discussions which will give all the participants a new impulse to develop and new tools to accomplish their goals. I do really hope we will manage to make a programme breathtakingly interesting. I suggest you sending your projects and ideas of presentations in the Programme Committee. This will help our moderators to choose the best ones and to make panel discussions really useful. And obviously I invite you to register as soon as possible. Everything presages that the Forum 2014 will be very special, particularly because it will be held during the shortest but the most mysterious white nights in St. Petersburg.
On November 15 two discussion sessions of the Guest Conference under the auspices of the SPBILF were held in premises of the High Council of French Notariat on Boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg. The topic of the Conference concerned the key novels in the legislation of the Russian Federation and France regulating civil transactions and investments.
One of the speakers was Oleg Shilokhvost, Judge of the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation. At the beginning of his speech he paid attention to the fact that France is a birthplace of the civil legislation and the Civil Code of the French Republic will celebrate its 210th anniversary this year. Oleg Shilokhvost congratulated French colleagues who used to be so careful to their civil legislation and preserved the Code for more than 200 years, and suggested the Russian participants being just as careful.
The paper by Oleg Shilokhvost was dedicated to changes into the Civil Code that are being drafted now. The speaker expressed his hope that by June 2014 when the IV St. Petersburg International Legal Forum would take place the changes would have already come into force and would be discussed at the appropriate session.
“The issues of law of obligations, particularly its general part, as compared to the Civil Code’s reform, were put to the background of legal and academic communities’ attention. Apparently, legislators had their own reasons for such a decision, but from the practical viewpoint, from the viewpoint of a judicial discretion and the possibility of proceedings’ unification and enhancement it seems to be not reasonable as the general part of law of obligations is a basis on which the regulation of the whole system is built, of both contractual and non-contractual obligations. So, I will dwell only on some of the most crucial – from a practical perspective – changes that are supposed to be introduced into the legislation.
First of all, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that rules which will make a correlation between different levels of obligations regulation are offered to be brought into the Civil Code. Today we have three levels of obligations: first of all, “general terms on obligations”, “general terms on agreement” and “terms on certain types of agreement”. Currently, neither theorists dealing with these issues seriously nor careful practicioners have no doubt surely, that even the special clause being absent these general terms on obligations as well as general terms on agreement are subject to application, not only to treaty obligations but also to other similar legal relations. As an example I can cite “restitutional relationship” when if a transaction is considered as invalid parties are obliged to return everything that was acquired in accordance with a contract. This statement does also concern corporate relations when a corporation must pay out money, say, as dividends. But very often, questions aroused, and in practice also, whether it is possible to apply to these relations what is written in the Civil Code in respect of obligations and treaty obligations. Now we are supposed to lay down the order of priority, as we say, “matrioshka doll” composed of these rules, stating that terms on certain types of agreements have precedence over general terms on agreement and correspondingly general terms on agreement have precedence over general terms on obligations. This “matrioshka” slightly changes when it is referred to non-defined contracts, to wit when there is no particular positive regulation of contracts used in practice. In this case it is general terms on agreement that prevail and general terms on obligations are subject to subsidiary application.
The whole range of currently absent clauses on model special contract constructions is supposed to be brought into the Civil Code, too. What is meant here is an alternative obligation, optional obligation, natural obligation as well as a considerable unification of all legal clauses concerning standard form contracts, contracts of adhesion, preliminary contracts, framework contracts and option contracts. Moreover, we plan to introduce such concept as subscribers’ agreement.
As for a standard form contract, for the moment this is the contract which a party that carries on business and deals with sale of goods or rendering of services shall make with everybody and shall not prefer anybody over other people addressing. This construction is quite wide-spread in practice. It often generates conflicts related to the fact that as a party obliged to make this contract the law mentions only commercial organization, meanwhile in practice individual entrepreneurs and non-commercial organizations do also take part in stream of commerce. Therefore, we plan to eliminate restrictions on the standard form contract’s subject matter. Moreover, there will be a clause stating that terms and conditions of this contract cannot differ for consumers falling in the same category. It is utterly important because this will really guarantee the equality of all the parties of the contract. There are citizens and customers, there are large commercial organizations, and peculiarities of their legal status shall be taken into account.
I would also like to turn attention to all the novels which are planned to be brought into the section which regulates liability for violation of obligations. One of the most crucial points to emphasize is the section concerning compensation of losses. Nowadays, the practice, unfortunately, is carried on in such a way that failure to prove amount of loss is sufficient to defeat the claim on their compensation. Currently, an important novel is being discussed which will oblige courts to prove the amount of losses discretionarily in the case when the very fact of infliction of loss is evident meanwhile the party laying a claim to compensation have certain difficulties with proving a certain amount. One of the most effective instruments to introduce is a concept of abstract and concrete losses.
Adjunct consultant with Altman Weil, Inc.
The article we are happy to present you is written by an American author from the Altman Weil, USA, and the information on generations is based on the history of culture development in the US. For that reason we asked Mark Rozin, President of the Ecopsy Consulting, company specializing in HR Consulting, to comment the classification with due regard to the Russian reality.
Mark Rozin: “The article depicts a classical American generation model. This theory is very popular nowadays as it reflects national and sometimes even international trends, the latter being equal both for the USA, Russia and other countries. The brightest example is Y-generation. It is international and all its main features are fairly well applicable to our country, at least in respect of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Y-generation has the strongest differences and it is of the biggest interest for managers today.
The previous generations, namely X-generation and baby boomers lived when the globalization was not in process, so they have American national features mainly. But even under these terms we can find something in common. For example, all the postwar generations whether they are from Russia, Europe or the US will have common features. Representatives of the X-generation do also have much in common, but our Xs are unique as they were born, studied and, probably, started working in the USSR and so, they witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A lot of people have changed their career and way of life drastically, many of them became entrepreneurs. It sets a seal on the whole generation.
Representatives of 17 states have already registered for the IV Forum including Ireland, France, Great Britain, Belgium and Germany.
SPBILF Partner, Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA) has the pleasure to invite you to participate in the Х Annual Legal Forum – “Development of Legal Services Market in Ukraine – 2014” on 21 February 2014 (Intercontinental Hotel, Kyiv, Ukraine). Please use this link to check the preliminary programme http://uba.ua/eng/events/1160/.
On January 16, 2014 during the meeting between the Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation Alexander Konovalov and Minister of Justice of the Italian Republic Annamaria Cancellieri a cooperation programme between the two Ministries was signed for the years 2014-2015 including a number of Russian-Italian seminars on the issues of notariat and advocacy, as well as the participation of the Italian Ministry’s delegation in the IV St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.
Deadline of early-bird registration: March 31, 2014.
In the next issue of the Digest on February 12, 2014, you will find tips on your business development plan by Mike O'Horo, expert in legal sales and marketing and the article article by Lynn Foley, legal marketing and professional services consultant, on how to get your marketing budget right.