Legal support of
the Russian and
INTERNATIONAL business
One of our most interesting clients is a startup developing a mobile application for health assessment according to the Indian Ayurveda system.
Olga Gezha’ s client is a woman who is based in France and organized this startup together with her friends (and now the partners) from India.
India and France are not just located on different continents but have absolutely different mindsets. People have different working speed and different understanding of the term “partnership”. As it always has been the case in business, even if you have been friends for 20 years, it is very important to specify in advance who is responsible for what, who finances what and how the profit shall be distributed.
Fortunately our client understands it, that is why she applied to us for arranging an international partnership.
We advised her to govern the relationships by the English law and to enter into the official agreement with her partners before incorporation. This is just the first step in startup development, and the following activities are ahead: choice of jurisdiction, company establishment, drafting the agreement for mobile application development, and launching the developed application in compliance with, among others, international regulation on Personal Data Protection since height, weight, eye colour and other parameters the application needs for Ayurveda are comprising the personal data.
We like such projects as we can implement a comprehensive approach to the client’s business support and prevent risks right from the very beginning.
Our attorneys could build a successful modelling career but instead of this we consult the fashion industry. We are proud to assist SIGMA , one of the largest model agencies in Russia, in building of its own small franchise empire: trademark registration, intellectual property ownership structuring, franchise contract drafting. All this is to enable the SIGMA model schools opening all over Russia, because models of these schools were awarded with the international contracts!
LEX CAPITAL have been extensively working with franchising for many years, particularly with such giants as KFC and Pizza Hut. We know what a Franchisor needs to secure its brand and ensure safe development in Russia and abroad. For us, working with SIGMA is an opportunity to immerse ourselves into the world of fashion business, learn something new, because legal work cannot be built without understanding the client’s business.
An old lady bought a flexible hose, it broke, and the neighbours sued the old lady for 100 thousand roubles for flooding out the apartment below. The old lady came to us to get free consultation.
When we saw a 90-years old lady with shaky hands we couldn’t refuse her, and we have handled this case Pro Bono for 3 years . Who could have thought there that we would be so proud of this case!
The first-instance court rejected our suit against the shop even by way of recourse reasoning that we hadn’t proved the shop’s guilt in the hose breaking. That was irrespective of the fact the shop had accepted the hose and the breakage had been covered by the warranty period.
During the appeal proceeding, this resolution was overruled, and now the old lady will recover money her neighbours had charged from her. Our plan is to get a compensation for our services at least in the minimum amount that is usually can be charged via the general jurisdiction courts.
As our managing partner believes, besides making profit, business should have some social function. This is not only the Pro Bono practice. The company’s mission is a positive contribution to change the society for the better. Even the minor case has its mission. We believe that by providing the high quality legal support for business we help its sustainable development, thus contributing to the economic growth of the society.
We have had such an unusual inquiry from our client, a kindergarden chain owner from Moscow. The building will be registered to him as an individual entrepreneur and then it should be transferred to the kindergarden, an educational institution owned by the same individual entrepreneur.
A considerable tax risk appears in case of renting out the building to the kindergarden (the tax authorities are especially attentive to transactions with the mutually dependent persons), but the title should be transferred somehow, otherwise it would not be possible for the kindergarden to obtain a license and carry out the educational activities.
There is a solution to have a cake and eat it too. The property owner is entitled to transfer his property (the building in this case) to his privately owned institution (the kindergarden in our case) for operational administration. At this, no one should pay to nobody. This solution has been found by LEX CAPITAL attorneys within the record-short time, considering that they had to study a lot of case law!
We have a special affection for the non-standard tasks. The reason is simple – that is how we grow professionally.