A Russian lawyer who worked for an American firm died in custody recently, and Moscow offices of a number of Western firms have been raided. DAVID ROBINSON looks at the challenges facing foreign lawyers in Russia.
“The police came roaring in with guns and shut our office down,” says a partner who was working on a loan guarantee for a local businessman at DLA Piper’s Moscow office. His client had become embroiled in a dispute with the Moscow city government, and the security services wanted a three-inch file. In Russia, solicitor-client privilege rights don’t exist: the firm was obliged to hand it over. “We had no problems handing them the file. But they presumed that we would shred it because that’s what they would have done,” the DLA partner recalls. “It was beyond their comprehension that an international law firm might actually follow the law.”
In the same week, the Moscow offices of White & Case and Lovells were also raided in connection with the same matter. The dispute centred on an $87.5 million fraud related to a massive five-star hotel development.
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