About Company

Our services and experience

Smart & Loyal Team was formed in 2011 from employees of law firms and management companies of large business and investment funds that specialise in the distressed asset management. Each of the partners of Smart & Loyal “has flown” more than 10,000 flight hours in legal consulting in the real conditions of the Russian business, in its most flashpoint areas.

We have a unique experience in legal support for investments in the creation of new projects by several partners with different interests, in acquisitions of major assets and shares in businesses, as well as “expenses” of partners in the deadlock situations complicated by criminal claims of the parties to each other and overall climate of distrust.

The agreements and recommendations prepared by us in which weaknesses are spelled out discipline the partners as such and minimize the risk when one of the parties is tempted to behave in bad faith towards the other, inconsistently with the letter and spirit of the originally agreed arrangements.

We can prepare and implement shareholders’ agreements and corporate agreements between the members, share purchase agreements based on business terms and conditions using the working instruments that have been adopted by the Russian civil law at last and shall be subject to judicial protection, including, indemnifications, warranties and representations, escrow mechanisms, and options, for example, in the form of notarial agreements on extrajudicial transfer of shares in the Company in the event that one of the partner fails to perform its obligations to finance a joint project, etc.

In these latter days, requests from Russian investors have been increasingly received more often for advice and processing of transactions with crypto currencies, in relation to IT assets, and financing of start-ups, to which we successfully respond.

There has been an increasing demand for marriage contracts, marital settlement agreements between spouses. We provide support in complex divorce cases, challenging asset withdrawal transactions, asset tracing, including, in foreign jurisdictions subject to current judicial practice, and with minimal risks of challenging agreements in court.

Who we work for

First and foremost, our clients are business, private investors that make decisions in relation to any asset, financing, transactions, projects and that want to clearly formalise arrangements and to have the opportunity of their real legal protection if something goes wrong and the situation changes.

In the area of protection of violated rights, our clients are those whose rights have been violated by unfair acts / omissions of contractors, partners, third parties, and by the state. Persons that are intrinsically right in essence and that are, by engaging the team of results-driven tenacious lawyers as their allies, willing to demand restoration of their rights, indemnification and accountability using all available remedies that are provided by the rules of law and enforcement mechanisms of the state.

For those who want to obtain independent legal due diligence and find out an opinion of experts on the risks they may be exposed to, on case scenarios and on the upcoming consequences in advance before making any legally binding actions and statements, it would be interesting and useful to meet with us.

How we can help you

We know where there may be “weaknesses” in the conclusion of agreements, execution of transactions, partnerships; and we are interested to apply our skills and experience to clearly and distinctly formalise arrangements. Clarity and unambiguity are our principles.

We will select a method to formalize arrangements, appropriate to their essence, most efficient for real protection, subject to actual judicial practice and the situation in the legal system rather than focus on the outer beauty of the multipage tomes containing legal documents.

We are interested in creating operable legal mechanisms to formalise new business projects, business management agreements, relations between the parties, as well as the working schemes for the correct exit strategies.

In the area of conflicts of interest and disputes, we do not add fuel to the fire, and where possible we either try to put out the fire using the check-and-balance system, mutual guarantees understandable to all parties to the conflict or act heavy handed and aggressively to the extent possible, return withdrawn assets, and hold an unfair party accountable.

We adhere to the Know Your Customer Principle and do not enter into the projects where the client, in our opinion, is not right.

We would like the client to understand what is going on and what the basic logic of legal consequences is; we do not talk in circles and roundabouts, i.e. about nothing; and we never do unnecessary acts or things just to impress and to bill more hours.

We build a correct motivation system for ourselves in relation to the client; the part of our fee in the projects where the result yet to be in the future and depends on our actions is always correlated to the result which is the client’s target.