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The Buzz in Russia: Interview with Dmitriy Chepurenko of Liniya Prava

The Buzz in Russia: Interview with Dmitriy Chepurenko of Liniya Prava

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With the economy returning to pre-pandemic levels, and digital transformation being a priority, Russia is on the right track for a good 2022, according to Liniya Prava Managing Partner Dmitriy Chepurenko.

“The pandemic got us stuck, for quite a long time. Businesses stopped, litigation stopped, everything was put on hold,” Chepurenko begins. “However, now, I’m happy to say we’ve bounced back.” He reports strong levels of market activity and says that the entire legal market is “abuzz with how deals have picked up both in value and in volume.” 

Chepurenko says that there “are a lot of interesting projects taking shape on the horizon” and that the legal market is prepped and ready to tackle them all head-on. “Business is picking up, arbitration and litigation proceedings are back to where they were before COVID-19 – mostly due to the fact that the level of overall digitalization has spiked, country-wide.” He reports that both businesses and state administrative bodies, as well as the courts, have successfully adapted to online work, which prevented further slowdowns.

“The government has decided to further this, and there is a strong desire to enact new legislation and regulations on technological developments – cryptocurrencies and blockchain,” Chepurenko says. “These are very positive developments and the markets have clearly shown a strong desire and a need for regulation." Chepurenko feels that, in addition to cryptocurrencies and blockchain, big data and legal tech will be the way forward. “Sberbank has recently developed its own platform for legal services and electronic template use – and swaths of law firms have done the same or similar,” he says. “People want to do business online and now they can.”

Ultimately, Chepurenko reports that, despite the political situation the country finds itself in, the economy is advancing in a healthy direction and commerce is unimpeded. “The political situation in the world is very unstable but mostly it looks like these are all artificial constructs that are performed for the sake of those who stand to profit from the turmoil. It is not something that weighs heavily on general day-to-day business,” he says. There have been plenty that took a hit though, and “a lot of businesses that went under. We expect a strong wave of restructurings, insolvencies, and bankruptcies to hit the legal market very soon.” Still, this was not to be expected given the pandemic and what it did for the economies of Europe, but Chepurenko is hopeful that Russia will keep "spearheading progress and overall economic prosperity."