You're reading: Ukrainian law firm knows litigation

Lawyers willing to take clients' problems into the courtroom

re familiar with the high profile Western law firms doing business here – firms like Baker & McKenzie, Altheimer & Gray and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey – than they are with B.I.M. International Law Offices, a local law firm founded in part by Viktor Medvedchuk, now an influential parliament deputy.

B.I.M. claims to have squeezed a few foreign investors into its portfolio of clients, but most of the firm’s clients are local. While B.I.M. director Yuri Romazanov won’t disclose the firm’s clientele, he does admit that clients include the Dynamo Kyiv Soccer Club, Kievskie Vedomosti newspaper and the Slavutych Concern, a business holding group.  These are companies known to be close to Medvedchuk and his close business ally and fellow parliament deputy Hryhory Surkis.

“Western business groups in Ukraine tend to hire Western law firms because they trust them more,” Romazanov said. “But I believe Ukrainian lawyers who are from Ukraine, live in Ukraine and practice in Ukraine are better than their Western counterparts.”

B.I.M. opened its offices in 1993. In the beginning, it was a Ukrainian-Israeli joint venture. In fact, B.I.M. is an acronym for the firm’s two main founders: Medvedchuk and Ben Israel, now deceased, whom Roma-zanov described as a successful lawyer with an international reputation.

“Ben Israel was a highly professional and classical lawyer,” Romazanov said. “In the early days, he and about eight lawyers he sent over to us provided the firm with a great deal of valuable training and experience.”

After Israel’s death in 1995, B.I.M. became solely Ukrainian owned and tripled its workforce to 33 employees, including 22 attorneys.

Today, B.I.M. is owned by 10 Ukrainian partners, including Med-vedchuk and Romazanov, who has been director of B.I.M. since the firm’s beginning.

B.I.M. differs from its Western counterparts in the way it does business, too.

B.I.M. lawyers are litigators, and the firm has an impressive record, winning more than 80 percent of the several thousand cases it has handled since its founding, Romazanov said.

By contrast Western firms favor consultation over litigation and prefer to settle out of court, Romazanov said.

“We don’t count how many cases we litigate,” said Yury Kucherenko, Baker & McKenzie’s business development manager. “B.I.M. is not one of our competitors. We provide comprehensive legal advice. Litigation is not a big part of our business.”

Baker & McKenzie has 14 lawyers and claims to serve about 400 clients in Ukraine. The majority of them are foreign investors.

“Western law firms have their style of practice; we have ours,” Romazanov said, adding that B.I.M. offers business and personal-affairs consulting services, as well.

B.I.M.’s success in court battles has gained it the respect of other local law firms. Several local lawyers working in Western law firms told the Post that B.I.M. is very successful in court.

“There have been several cases in which the lawyers representing the other side in a dispute suddenly decided to settle out of court when they learned we were representing the other side,” Romazanov said, adding that B.I.M.’s good record stems from execution of a good business strategy, not magic.

“We win most of our cases because we don’t take up cases that we think we will lose,” he added.

The strategy appears to be working.

B.I.M. recently moved from offices in the Hotel Ukraina to a new office located just off Lva Tolstoho ploshcha, one of Kyiv’s central squares.

B.I.M. has also taken a bold step by competing in a tender to act as a consultant for the State Property Fund in this year’s privatization of state phone monopoly Ukrtelekom, which is expected to be Ukraine’s biggest divestiture yet. Other tender participants include Commerzbank AG, Raiffeisen Investment and Credit Suisse First Boston.

“I believe B.I.M. is wholly qualified for this job,” Romazanov said, adding that B.I.M. has consulted businesses on many privatization tenders, including oil refinery and electricity sector sales.

“B.I.M. has a very stable position in the local market today,” Romazanov added.