Russian national firms, like Russian businesses, are coming to the fore.
The announcement today (9 October) of Glencore’s $30bn (£16bn) aluminium merger with Russia’s Rusal and Sual will not only create the world’s largest aluminium producer, it will also raise the profile of the Russian firm that is working alongside Ashurst, which is advising Rusal.
Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, led by the firm’s chairman Dimitry Afanasiev, negotiated the principal terms of the transaction for Rusal and is advising on all Russian law and public policy aspects.
The Western-style, four-partner and 64-lawyer firm has offices in Moscow and St Petersburg and an outlet in Philadelphia. And as exclusively reported by The Lawyer (20 March), the firm is currently looking for a London launch.
As Afanasiev said of the Glencore deal: “This is perhaps the first time that a Russian law firm has negotiated the principal terms of such a mega-deal and participated in its execution alongside some leading UK and US law firms.”
It is unlikely to be the last.
