Alexey Gorodissky and Dmitry Yakushev, Attorneys, Andrey Gorodissky & Partners Law Firm, spoke at the IV Petersburg Legal Summit

On May 29 and 30, 2025 the annual Petersburg Legal Summit was held at St. Petersburg heritage mansion housing the Leningrad Center and at the Universe of Water Demonstration and Exhibition Complex, where issues of various fields of law were discussed.

Alexey Gorodissky, Attorney, Partner and Practice leader Corporate Law /M&A spoke in the session “Agree “on the shore”. Corporate Agreement Reform”. Participants of the session deliberated on changes in civil and corporate laws proposed by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

The following matters were in particular discussed:

• Harmonization of regulation of the shareholders’ agreement in joint-stock companies and the agreement on the exercise of rights of participants of limited liability companies;
• Additional limitations on the possibility of reduction of a penalty for a breach of obligations under the corporate agreement;
• Problems associated with contesting resolutions of meetings of participants (shareholders) in cases where such resolutions were taken in violation of the corporate agreement to which not all participants (shareholders) of the companies are parties;
• The institute of so-called will-substituting resolution. It is the possibility of claiming in court the revision of a resolution taken by the general meeting of participants (shareholders) of the company in violation of terms and conditions of the corporate agreement;
• Inclusion in the corporate agreement of options, in particular those intended to ensure the exercise of the tag along and the drag along rights.

In his report Alexey told the audience where and what for the corporate agreement may be needed. He shared with participants and attendees of the session his opinion on the proposed novelties, gave his assessment of the applicable legislation.

Dmitry Yakushev, Attorney, Counsel, Bankruptcy and Dispute Resolution / International Arbitration Practice, spoke at the session “How to Draw a Prize in the Statute of Limitations Lottery”. In his presentation Dmitry analyzed the situations where courts denied protection of respondents’ rights by application of the statute of limitation as a sanction for unfair conduct.

By way of examples, Dmitry referred to a number of cases examined by the RF Supreme Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court, the Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court of the Urals Region, Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court of the West-Siberian Region.

In the considered cases the courts pointed out that unfair conduct may include, for instance, abuse of procedural rights, refusal of debtor’s former senior managers to provide debtor’s documents to the bankruptcy trustee, respondents’ deliberate avoidance of disclosure of any case related information, giving false evidence by respondents.

Participants of the discussion weighed up the pros and cons of such approach, including a complex problem which is increasingly frequently raised in court practice: whether it is possible to not apply the statute of limitation in cases where public interest is affected or should the statute of limitation be applied in all cases and under any circumstances.

The Petersburg Legal Summit is a high-profile event which was held in St. Petersburg for the fourth time this year and it surely is extremely popular among participants and speakers of this event.

The specificity of the Summit is its creativity that manifested itself in every detail: original corporate style and non-trivial business and evening events programs.

Among speakers at the Summit were heads of legal departments of largest Russian companies, managing partners of leading law firms, civil servants, judges, chief editors of professional mass media.

The Summit is attended by more than 700 participants each year. They are companies’ and consulting law firms’ legal practitioners. 75% of the guests are heads of legal departments and their teams.