TLS Alliance, the business law alliance of leading law firms of the three Baltic States and Belarus, together with the strategic partner, international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP from Great Britain, intends to implement a Belarusian economy spurt programme.
According to Eugenija Sutkienė, managing partner of the law firm Sutkienė, Pilkauskas & Partners, the programme prepared by TLS Alliance, for the most part, will be aimed at attracting investment to the Belarusian economy from major foreign companies.
“The positive developments that took place in the Belarusian economy have improved the investment climate in Belarus and opened up new investment opportunities and prospects, therefore a key objective of the economic regeneration programme under preparation is to attract the capital of foreign companies to the Belarusian market,” says the Lithuanian lawyer.
According to another member of the alliance Konstantin Mikhel, managing partner of the leading Belarusian law firm Vlasova Mikhel & Partners, opportunities for business development in his country have been created by an increasingly more liberal state policy with regard to economic processes as well as the need for capital.
“The government of Belarus has considerably relaxed state control over economic entities, there is a plan to privatise about 500 state enterprises as well as 150 companies which are partially owned by the state, and favourable developments have also taken place in the area of taxation and real estate markets. Such actions have been taken with a view to creating an attractive investment environment for investors both from the East and from the West,” says Konstantin Mikhel.
In his opinion, the Belarusian market is particularly favourable for the development of companies engaged in the finance and real estate sectors.
“The programme under preparation by the alliance and partners is aimed at promoting active investment into the Belarusian market and simplifying the procedures with regard to development of foreign companies in the market of this country,” maintains Konstantin Mikhel, managing partner of one of the largest law firms of Belarus.
The first seminars for businessmen on investment opportunities in Belarus will be held by TLS Alliance in London (Great Britain) as soon as in April, while subsequent seminars will move to the Baltic countries.
Prior to the seminars in England and our countries designed for businessmen, lawyers will arrange a special conference for the representatives of the Belarusian authorities who will hear about successful international cases of privatisation, opportunities and benefit of privatisation as well as joint projects of cooperation between the state and private business. According to Eugenija Sutkienė, the current global economic situation is particularly favourable for Belarus as the active segment of business keeps looking for various investment opportunities that are increasingly fewer in Europe.
“Business is always looking for attractive investment projects and Belarus in the current situation is able to offer such projects,” says Eugenija Sutkienė.
TLS Alliance was set up in September of last year by three law firms Tark & Co, Loze, Grunte & Cers and Sutkienė, Pilkauskas & Partners. Together with the lawyers of Vlasova Mikhel & Partners from Belarus, the alliance unites over 120 attorneys-at-law and lawyers.
About TLS Alliance
Sutkienė, Pilkauskas & Partners was founded in Vilnius in spring 2003 following reorganisation of the Vilnius office of the USA law firm McDermott, Will & Emery. The founders of the firm were also the first, and for a long time the only, founders of the foreign law office in Lithuania. At the moment, Sutkienė, Pilkauskas & Partners is in cooperation with long-standing major law firms in the USA, Great Britain, the Scandinavian countries, Poland, Russia and other Eastern and Central European countries.
Tark & Co is among the oldest and largest law firms in Estonia which started its operation in 1991.
Loze, Grunte & Cers is a major law firm in Latvia with 15 years’ experience. The firm was founded in May 2005 as a result of a merger of two leading Latvian law firms with international experience, Loze & Partners and Grunte & Cers.
Vlasova Mikhel & Partners has been in operation under this name since a merger of the leading law firms Vlasova & Partners and Mikhel & Partners in April 2007. Currently, over 20 lawyers practise with the firm; they have participated in traineeships in major USA and European law firms. Cooperation of Vlasova Mikhel & Partners with international law firms, such as Clifford Chance, White & Case, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and others, contributes to its high-level standard of legal services.
Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP is an independent major law firm in Great Britain employing over 650 lawyers who provide services in corporate, finance, real estate, taxation, commercial and other areas of law. It has branches and representations in Singapore, Dubai, Moscow and Brussels.
Petras Šateika
Daily Respublika
24 January 2009
