Professional notice
Russia
The five partner, 15 associate competition practice at ALRUD is one of the largest and most skilled in Russia. Vassily Rudomino and German Zakharov lead the team, alongside partners Alexander Zharskiy, Sergey Petrachkov and Maria Ostashenko. The impressive client list includes several major international companies, including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Booking.com, Uber and Danaher.
The firm has always been a prominent fixture in Russian merger control work, including acting for Fiat Chrysler on its pending $50 billion merger of equals with PSA Group, which would create the world’s fourth-largest automaker. The team also represented Danaher in its $21.4 billion acquisition of General Electric’s biopharma business and advised both Gardner Denver and Ingersoll-Rand in their merger, which created the world’s second-largest manufacturer of industrial pumps and compressors, with a market capitalisation of about $11.6 billion. Natura tapped Alrud for antitrust advice in Russia regarding its acquisition of Avon Products, and Elanco Animal Health did the same for its global acquisition of Bayer’s animal health business. The team also advised VimpelCom before the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) on the acquisition of a stake in and establishment of a joint venture between four federal telecommunications companies aiming to develop and use 5G.
Alrud’s behavioural work is also impressive, acting for Booking.com in the FAS’s investigation. The competition watchdog in September 2020 sent a second warning to the online travel agent to remove narrow most-favoured-nation clauses from its contracts with domestic accommodation providers. Uber has also turned to Alrud for advice on various antitrust issues related to markets in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Other notable work included acting for Samsung during a 2018 dawn raid, as well as the ensuing case pertaining to the alleged coordination of the business activities of resellers.
ALRUD’s Competition and Antitrust team is widely recognized as one of the leading, and most reputable, practices in Russia. It provides market-leading expertise in all aspects of Russian competition law. ALRUD supports clients on a wide range of antitrust issues: coordination of merger control transactions with the FAS (Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service), cartel investigations, antitrust disputes, commercial agreements and antitrust compliance.
ALRUD’s full-service offering is a key factor in attracting blue-chip domestic and international clients. ALRUD’s Competition and Antitrust team routinely works with its top-ranking M&A, commercial law and dispute resolution practices, enabling them to advise on the full spectrum of a client’s complex requirements and to provide the scale of resources needed to service the most demanding cases.
ALRUD is consistently ranked as an elite competition practice by the major international directories, such as Chambers & Partners, The Legal 500 and Global Competition Review.
ALRUD has unique experience and advises on Russian and CIS competition and regulatory aspects of acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures. It counselled Bayer through its $66 billion merger with Monsanto, Danaher Corporation through its $21.4 billion acquisition of the Biopharma business of General Electric and Praxair in its merger with Linde – a deal that created a company with a market value of more than $75 billion. ALRUD also counselled Uber in its joint venture with Yandex, a technology conglomerate that includes Russia’s largest online taxi-booking service. The firm also represented Siemens in its merger with Alstom, valued at $17 billion.
In addition to successful work on merger control cases, ALRUD has a wide experience in supporting Clients and representing their interests in landmark behavioral cases. The firm represented LG Electronics during an unscheduled FAS inspection and subsequent examination of potential coordination among smartphone resellers. Earlier, ALRUD was the antitrust counsel for Maersk Line against FAS allegations that the shipping company violated the country’s anti-monopoly laws. ALRUD achieved an unprecedented settlement, closing the case and agreeing a minimum settlement fee for the client.
Key Contact:
Vassily Rudomino
Senior Partner, Advocate, Head of Competition/Antitrust Practice
Email: [email protected]
Address: Skakovaya str., 17, bld. 2, 6th fl., Moscow, Russia, 125040
Tel: +7 495 234 96 92
Website: www.alrud.com