Sayenko Kharenko

Labour & Compliance

Svitlana Kheda, counsel at Sayenko Kharenko, heads labour practice, leading the firm’s privacy and data protection, anti-corruption and anti-bribery, and mediation groups. Dr Kheda is an internationally recognized expert in all of the above areas of law.

Dr Kheda has extensive experience advising leading multinational companies on a wide range of sophisticated and complex issues in the field of labour/employment, privacy/data protection and anti-corruption/anti-bribery legislation. Dr Kheda also has extensive international experience in public-private partnerships in infrastructure.

In particular, Dr Kheda focuses on adjusting the labour policies and procedures of multinational groups to Ukrainian legislation, including adapting corporate policies of foreign companies, developed according to the FCPA and the UKBA, to Ukrainian anticorruption legislation, and developing standard anti-corruption contract clauses and other corporate documentation in the anti-corruption area. Dr Kheda is experienced in conducting FCPA and the UKBA compliance due diligence reviews of Ukrainian targets, as well as internal investigations of compliance violations. Dr Kheda regularly prepares legal opinions on various instances of gift/charity/grant-in-aid giving and providing entertainment/hospitality to government officials and other subjects of liability for corruption offenses.

Dr Kheda is renowned for her remarkable track record of complicated employment disputes settled amicably and on the clients’ terms. Svitlana Kheda is well-regarded for developing preventive mechanisms and risk mitigation solutions in the areas of her expertise.

Prior to joining Sayenko Kharenko, Dr Kheda headed the Programs Department of the International Law Institute (Washington, DC, USA), where, in particular, she developed and taught the training seminars “Anti-Corruption Regulation”, “Arbitration and Mediation”, “Public-Private Partnership in Infrastructure”, and “Legislative Drafting” for senior governmental officials and members of parliaments of developing countries and emerging economies. Dr Kheda’s professional experience also includes working for a leading Western law firm operating in Ukraine, where she was in charge of labour and employment practice for eight years, and supervising (at the client’s request) for over a year the HR department of one of Ukraine’s biggest garment factories.

Ukrainian, Russian, English, French, Turkish.

Board Member of the National Association of Mediators of Ukraine for 2019-2021 International Bar Association, Anti-Corruption, Employment and Industrial Relations Law Committees National Association of Mediators of Ukraine Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (USA) Ukrainian Bar Association, Board Member of the Labor Law Committee American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine European Business Association

LL.M. (International Law) in International Legal Studies from Georgetown University Law Center (Washington, D.C., USA) LL.D. (Ph.D.) in International and Comparative Law from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv LL.M., summa cum laude, from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv Summer course “The US Congress”, University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)