FT Innovative Lawyers 2017 recognised AVELLUM for pioneering the litigation
strategy that helped to achieve a unique resolution from the Ukrainian court in
favour of the bondholders of Ukrainian agricultural group Mriya.

Financial Times commended AVELLUM’s ability to convince the Ukrainian judiciary to admit
new forms of evidence and to ensure protection of foreign investors’ rights
through the Ukrainian court procedure.

This was the first occasion when the Eurobond transaction was tested successfully
before the Ukrainian courts. The litigation itself involved a number of unique
and complex matters, such as explaining complicated structure of the Eurobond
transaction; applying the English law concept of trust, which is unknown to
Ukrainian law; proving that the trustee, rather than individual bondholders, is
the proper claimant. AVELLUM was successful in resolving all these challenges.

Dmytro
Marchukov, partner and head of dispute resolution, commented: “It is the
privilege to have worked on such case and we are glad to be distinguished by FT
Innovative Lawyers in the outcome. Our litigation team would not have made it
without the assistance from our banking and finance colleagues. We also
received valuable support from Hogan Lovells, Norton Rose Fulbright and CRI
Group. In fact, the case is no longer unique as we have done similar exercise
in three more proceedings since then.”

The
AVELLUM team was led by senior associates Serhii Uvarov and Taras Dmukhovskyy,
with support from Iryna Vlasiuk and Oleksii Maslov, associates, and under the
supervision of partners Dmytro Marchukov and Glib Bondar.

The
FT Innovative Lawyers Report represents a unique analysis of the legal
industry, assessing lawyers on their innovation. Over the past 11 years it
has assessed legal innovation in over 50 different countries from
over 400 unique law firms and over 450 company in-house legal
departments. This year FT Innovative Lawyers received a record 1,006 submissions
and nominations.