KOSTA LEGAL

Our services in the area of corporate law include general corporate advice, commercial law, and mergers and acquisitions. We provide clients with cutting-edge, efficient and pragmatic legal advice and insights across a broad range of industries.

Kosta Legal’s Corporate and M&A team advises leading international and local companies on the corporate law matters that they face in all stages of a company’s life cycle. We help our clients establish their presence in Uzbekistan by developing optimal corporate structures, incorporating new legal entities, and assisting in the creation of joint ventures, accreditation of representative offices and registration of permanent establishments. We draft charters, shareholder agreements, joint venture agreements, by-laws, governance policies and other corporate documents. We assist our clients in preparing for, and holding, general meetings of shareholders, protecting their rights and ensuring compliance with corporate-related requirements, such as licensing, filing, reporting, disclosures and more.

We also advise on the dissolution of companies, joint ventures and formulating exit strategies that address issues such as ownership and licensing of intellectual property, division of territories and customers and non-competition agreements.

Our lawyers are experienced in negotiating, drafting and reviewing all types of commercial agreements, including international trade contracts, distribution, supply contracts, franchising, agency, manufacturing, licensing, outsourcing and other agreements. Our lawyers assist and represent clients in dealing with state authorities in the registration of commercial contracts, if required, and in obtaining licences and permits for their business operations.

Proposed transactions are scrutinized for their compliance with Uzbek laws to fight against the financing of terrorism and corruption and, where applicable, for their compliance with the relevant provisions of the FCPA and the UK Bribery Act. Our professionals also assist in conducting due diligence and internal investigations on the compliance of a company’s internal policies with FCPA and the UK Bribery Act requirements.

Our lawyers are recognized experts in the area of M&A. The Corporate and M&A team offers our clients services on structuring and implementing transactions, including due diligence, currency control, merger clearance, negotiation and drafting of contracts and other transaction documents, including share purchase agreements, shareholders agreements, security documents, and bank guarantees.

Kosta Legal’s lawyers have long been recognized as industry leaders in Uzbekistan. Our team has significant experience in factually and legally complex local and cross-border disputes in all fields of commercial law. Our success in dispute resolution is strongly supported by our lawyers’ in-depth understanding of governing laws, commercial customs, and business culture in Uzbekistan.

Our litigation lawyers have extensive experience in representing our clients in the Supreme Court, the Higher Economic Court, lower courts, arbitration courts as well as before quasi-judicial and competition authorities. We also represent clients in administrative procedures before state agencies and authorities, such as the Antimonopoly Committee of Uzbekistan.

We provide both pre- and post-dispute advice. Our lawyers frequently participate in the preparation of legal opinions and advice on pleadings abroad. We also assist clients in the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and judgments.

In all our cases, we aim not only to win in court, but also to ensure the enforcement of the court’s decision.

Our Employment Law practice specializes in a wide range of employment matters across all industry sectors. We always make it a priority to thoroughly understand our clients and their industry-specific needs in order to assist them in finding solutions to employment matters in an effective and efficient way.

Our team regularly advises clients on structuring labour relations, headcount optimization, employment of foreign personnel, employment contracts and their modification and termination, internal company working rules, collective labour agreements and relationships with local labour authorities. Our lawyers are also experienced in representing employers in human resources-related disputes.

Additionally, we regularly provide updates on employment-related changes in Uzbek law that affect the day-to-day operations of companies in Uzbekistan.

Real Estate and Construction is a key area of our practice. Our professionals provide comprehensive and commercially driven legal advice that meets the needs of our clients during real estate transactions and throughout all stages of a construction project. We combine legal expertise and extensive experience in this area with an innovative and pragmatic approach that considers all the special features of navigating the real estate business in Uzbekistan.

Our experts regularly represent local and foreign investors, sponsors and lenders, commercial banks and leasing companies, embassies and trade missions, landlords and tenants, construction companies and developers, and manufacturers and agricultural companies in transactions involving commercial, industrial and residential real estate. We are actively engaged in all stages of a real estate transaction: from legal due diligence, transaction structuring and funding to contract negotiations, registration of transfers of title and property management. Our team has enthusiastically supported the construction of a range of green-field and brown-field projects and infrastructure development projects of different complexities and scales.