Team size: Five

Can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently (cases, transactions, projects, anything like that)?

As a general counsel of a holding company, I handled the management of creation and restructuring of the company, which required overarching knowledge in multiple jurisdictions. As a key coordinator of the project, I assisted the local legal and tax experts by setting specific goals for them and monitoring the progress of each task. Our team also played a significant role in the execution of the joint Austrian-Chinese project- the construction and management of a toll-road in Zhejiang Province of China. As an active participant of the board of directors of Ningbo Shangjjeling Expressway Co, I provided legal support whilst liaising with local lawyers for a pioneering initiative in the field of construction in China, one of the first projects led by an Austrian company in the country.

One of the most outstanding projects completed with my participation was the acquisition of the International Trade Bank (ITB) in Armenia by Byblos Bank, Lebanon. The bank was initially created from scratch with the assistance of the holding company I worked for. The holding company already had investment and was managed by the institution to an appropriate level, and this helped us to merge them into Byblos Bank. I supervised the process as a member of the board of management of ITB. This bank continues its successful activity in the Republic of Armenia under the Byblos label and remains one of its most reputable local financial institutions.

I also played a key role in the development of a business project – North Avenue in Yerevan – the construction of a business complex in Yerevan, Armenia. A historical project, initially planned by the renowned Armenian architect Tumanyan, required a huge scale of reconstruction of the city centre, which could only be done with foreign investment. With our legal support and the Armenian government’s new policies on foreign investors, the holding’s leadership decided to participate in this project. I implemented management leadership as a member of the board of the SPV developing company – JSC North Island.

My team and I actively negotiated with European and Asian banks to obtain short-term financing for cotton production, export, and processing in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. One of the Austrian banks provided a credit line to finance this project, which was guaranteed by the Central Bank of Tajikistan.