The Wellbeing Index is becoming one of the key success indicators of internal corporate policies for legal firms. The mental health of legal professionals, in view of the huge number of stress factors, including due in no small part to the COVID-19 pandemic, has become the focus for lawyers themselves and for legal companies and […]

The liquidation of the State Architectural and Construction Inspectorate of Ukraine (DABI in Ukrainian), as announced by the government, is one of the last year’s most expected events among construction people. This was due to public attention incited by illegal construction, construction scams, corruption scandals and high risks for business.  To replace the old, inefficient […]

Quarantine restrictions aimed at tackling the COVID-19 pandemic have affected various sectors of the economy in different ways. The Hotel/Restaurant/Café industry is one of the areas that has suffered most from the ongoing quarantine. Since March 2020, catering and hotel businesses have been under pressure from the toughest quarantine restrictions up to the ban in […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented amount of state support to a broad range of businesses. Governments all around the world are spending billions now to support business sectors that have been forced to close their doors due to the pandemic outburst. This resulted in a significant increase of state aid-related work for competition […]

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global pharmaceutical industry has been under tremendous pressure to provide a solution for treating COVID-19 and, at the same time, to ensure the uninterrupted access of patients to treatment for other diseases. Obviously, this challenge has influenced the pharmaceutical market, including in Ukraine. Although COVID-19 has affected […]

Despite the ongoing lockdown in many resolution procedures of disputes, the administrative procedure remains rather active: businesses and the tax authorities have a number of tasks to fulfill during the quarantine period. Thus, the tax dispute resolution (TDR) practice reacts slowly and not critically towards temporary quarantine regulations. We provide a few comments (“news from […]

Lockdown has so far paralyzed resolution of many disputes for a few months. In the absence of respective regulation enabling the holding of hearings in online mode, state courts had few options.  As a rule, they simply adjourned the hearings, extended the procedural deadlines and took similar measures.  In this respect, international arbitration has been […]

COVID-19 prevention measures have undoubtedly affected all spheres of life and business, including the practice of bankruptcy. Analyzing the statistics of bankruptcy proceedings, we see the following figures: 85 cases were opened between 1 January 2020 and 11 March 2020, and from 12 March 2020 to 14 May 2020, 52 cases were opened. That is, […]

In the current conditions of isolation and restrictions of movement, remote work and education, the world is becoming even more dependent on reliable connectivity services. The importance of stability of telecommunications in the light of COVID-19 should not be underestimated. Legislative impact Like in many other jurisdictions, to ensure an uninterrupted consumers’ access to telecommunications […]

The COVID-19 outbreak has already affected many legal industries in Ukraine. This post is a brief reflection on those changes in the field of trade in agricultural commodities and commodity arbitration as seen presently as of 6 May 2020 and those dynamics which have already emerged under the circumstances. The post, however, does not aim […]

There is no industry that has not been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, and private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) industries are no exception. Moreover, as PE and VC funds, being professional financial institutions, are investors in other businesses operating in a wide range of industries and sectors, when considering the impact of COVID-19 […]

The COVID-2019 outbreak and the restrictive measures that followed are having a serious effect on employment. Surprisingly, while the impact of the pandemic is definitely negative, there is still one positive consequence. Ukraine has taken at least one step forward towards flexibility and modernization of its labor legislation. Even these tiny changes will influence the […]

Inertial practice IP is unique for its stability against all kinds of infections and viruses. Therefore, I am not inclined to talk about the pandemic’s direct or drastic impact on IP. Of course, quarantine and other restrictions have an effect on workflow and approaches to doing business in general. The IP sphere is rather inertial. […]

The quarantine was introduced in Ukraine in mid-March by presidential decree. This significantly complicated the work of law-enforcement officers and lawyers in criminal proceedings. In the absence of an urgent need for law-enforcement officers there is no possibility to carry out investigative and some procedural actions like interrogation (witnesses, victims), receipt of samples needed for […]

The COVID-19 situation has had a grave effect on the overall business environment, both globally and locally. A lot of things are on ice, resulting in limited access to funding both from capital markets and bank lending sources. To mitigate public health related consequences, the Ukrainian Government and local authorities have introduced certain quarantine measures, […]

Quarantine prolongation: airline losses and impact on cruise tourism At its meeting on 22 April, the Cabinet of Ministers followed the recommendations of the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine and extended quarantine restrictions in the country for the second time, this time till 11 May. As for the transport sector, there is still some uncertainty. […]

On 11 March, the Ukrainian government restricted business activity involving personal contact with customers, except for banks and insurance companies. The NBU responded with a number of regulatory reliefs for banks. Nevertheless, neither the NBU nor the Financial Services Commission (FSC) provided specific relief for non-banking firms. In our view, given the nature of the […]

The impact of COVID-19 on aviation and tourism industries was very rapid and heavy in a way we have never seen before. Travel bans and flight cancellations in response to the outbreak resulted in an unprecedented deep and long-lasting drop in passenger traffic and almost total absence of air connectivity. This led to a fall […]