The 10th Jubilee Forum of Corporate Lawyers

The 10th Jubilee Forum of Corporate Lawyers, one of the most important legal events, was held on 5-6 November 2015 in Rahat Palace Hotel, Almaty.

This traditional professional event is a place of rendezvous for leading practitioners in specific areas of law.  The best Kazakhstan business platform gathered over 100 lawyers, including key partners and practice leaders from the leading Kazakhstan law firms.

Sayat Zholshy & Partners delegated speakers to various sections of the programme who highlighted the upcoming legislative and regulatory developments.  Managing Partner Vitaliy Vodolazkin moderated the panel session devoted to the litigation practice developments.  In his report “New Civil Procedure Code of 31.10.2015: Key Novelties” Vitaliy Vodolazkin focused on the adopted amendments to legislation, which allocated separate proceedings for the settlement of investment disputes. Please see the presentation here. 

Senior Partner Aidyn Bikebayev took part in the discussion panel devoted to 2016 major legal events.  Aidyn Bikebayev expressed his vision of how to organize the work of a competition protection service in Kazakhstan.  Aidyn believes that his version of the competition law is efficient and effective with respect to monopolistic activities and anticompetitive actions of government authorities, does not limit entrepreneurial freedom and strictly precludes any unfair competition which remained unpunished in the past.  According to Aidyn, if the draft law is adopted, the regulation of Kazakhstan monopoly environment will conform to the OECD standards.

Partner Amir Begdesenov made a presentation at the panel devoted to international transactions and international trade.  Please see his presentation “Challenges of Trademark Protection” by following the link.

Partner Arman Berdalin moderated the panel devoted to corporate law and corporate governance issues.  Arman also made a presentation in which he shared his ideas on how to reform the JSC Law in the context of corporate governance.  Please see his presentation “Proposed Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan Concerning Corporate Governance Issues in Joint Stock Companies” here.

Partner Dmitriy Chumakov took part in the session devoted to the legal support of businesses in turbulent environment.  His presentation “New Grounds for Dismissal: Surprises in the New Draft Labour Code” focused on the Labour Code developments and explained whether Kazakhstan people should be concerned about the simplified dismissal procedure introduced by the new Labour Code.  Please see the presentation here.

Summarizing the Forum discussions we must acknowledge that the two-day event materialized in an enormous flow of valuable and helpful information giving answers to many questions raised by practitioners from many firms having extensive experience in solving legal issues.