Forte Tax & Law has been closely teaming up with St. Petersburg State University to provide practical training to students and assess the quality of education and professional training offered to graduates. Anton Kabakov, Partner at Forte Tax & Law, was recently involved as a member of the State Examination Board in the assessment of the defense of master theses by graduates specializing in tax law at the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.

Anna Yakovleva, Senior Associate at Forte Tax & Law, spoke last Wednesday, May 23, 2018, at an event organized by the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce and dedicated to questions of compliance and director liability.

From May 25, 2018 to July 25, 2018 a special procedure for registering foreign nationals will apply in cities hosting FIFA World Cup matches, i.e. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Nizhniy Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saransk and Sochi.

An event organized by Kelly Services for top managers to discuss leadership was held last Tuesday. Our esteemed partner, Anton Kabakov, was invited to moderate this discussion which ended up being particularly up-beat thanks to all the relevant issues that were discussed.

From April 20, 2018 onwards, employers will be required to use new forms when sending to the Department of Migration Matters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, among others, the following notices regarding foreign employees

A new base for accrual of property tax will be determined by the end of 2018 in St. Petersburg

Companies often do not pay enough attention to issues related to the holding and documenting of annual general meetings. This, in turn, gives rise to unnecessary risks and errors associated with internal control, relations with business partners and compliance with Russian law

The dispute is about supply transactions concluded between Uralkali and a related Swiss trader who resold the goods delivered by Uralkali to independent customers.

Mika shared his experience of doing business in Russia and the difficulties he had faced along the way. Mika also discussed whether lawyers will be required in the future when smart contracts and robot lawyers would be sufficiently developed and available for business.

The Supreme Court has rendered an important ruling in a dispute over the thin capitalization rule involving OAO SUEK-Kuzbass (further the “Company”). In this case, the Supreme Court allowed considering the loan principal as investment in capital in order to apply the preferential tax rates for dividends provided under double taxation treaties (further “Tax Treaties”) when paying interest re-qualified as dividends under the thin capitalization rule. The conclusions drawn by the Supreme Court will undoubtedly be of interest to all companies that have or are planning to get intragroup loans.