AVELLUM AND DEBEVOISE & PLIMPTON SUCCESSFULLY REPRESENT FIFTH PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE IN ENGLISH HIGH COURT

AVELLUM acted as a Ukrainian law counsel for the Fifth President of Ukraine, Mr Petro Poroshenko, in the hard-fought litigation before the High Court of England and Wales. The case ended up with the successful challenge of the jurisdiction of English courts to hear a USD140 mln claim against our client and strike-out of this claim as groundless.

The claim was brought against Mr Petro Poroshenko and Ms Valeria Gontareva (a former governor of the National Bank of Ukraine) by a businessman Mr Igor Surkis and five Surkis family companies. The dispute arose from the events surrounding the nationalisation of the largest Ukrainian bank PrivatBank back in 2016.

The hearing took place in late July 2021, in which Lord Goldsmith QC argued on behalf of Mr Petro Poroshenko before Justice Calver. The court upheld the jurisdictional challenge and granted a strike-out application of the second defendant.

Vadim Medvedev, a partner at AVELLUM, commented: “We are extremely honoured to deliver such an overwhelming victory to our client. The judgment reflected the defendants’ victory on all major points. This is a well-deserved result of all the efforts, which both AVELLUM and Debevoise & Plimpton teams dedicated to the matter.”

AVELLUM team was led by partner Vadim Medvedev with significant support from counsel Andriy Fortunenko and associates Andriy Kuleba, Khrystyna Shvab, Kristina Mysenko, and Valeriia Ustiuhova.