Results of 2018

The time has come to take stock of the year 2018 and, to be honest, it is precisely the case when the year is so rich for events that it is quite difficult to choose where to start. We think that it makes more sense to arrange events not in the chronological order, but by their importance.

There is no doubt that the main event was the extension of the company and opening of the offices in Kazakhstan and Switzerland. Notwithstanding the fact that these offices were opened within a few months, the preparations had taken us more than a year. We are delighted to get closer to our clients in Kazakhstan and to have an office in such an important location from the perspective of sports law as Switzerland. Besides, a specific reference shall be made to the fact that such powerful, successful and experienced lawyers in their countries as Alex Zen-Ruffinen and Inzhu Khusainova have become members of SILA. In the upcoming year we will open an office in another country which is also extremely important for our business, further information will be available in January-February 2019.

It is hard to believe but during this year we managed to organize and stage two international seminars on sports law: the first one took place on 28 March in Moscow with the support of RPL, RFU and CSKA and it gathered top-notch speakers and participants from all over the world. Besides partners of SILA, the following specialists gave their presentations: arbitrators of the CAS Pavel Pivovarov, Efraim Barak, Bernhard Welten and Manfred Nan and such renowned lawyers as Marcus Motta (Neymar’s counsellor) and Marina Dumina (Head of Legal department of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Local Organising Committee). The conference was attended by dozens of lawyers from more that 20 countries. You can find photos, videos and presentations on our website.

On 26 October an international conference dedicated to the opening of the SILA office in Kazakhstan was held in Astana. It was a true pleasure to see so many lawyers interested in sports law at our conference. You can also find photos, videos and presentations on our website.

We would also like to announce that in 2019 we are planning to hold an even more large-scale conference which will supposedly be held after the May holidays. The precise time, place and partners will be announced in January.
We are proudly reminding you that in 2018 our company was recognized as one of the leading law firms in labor law in Russia according to the newspaper Kommersant and the prize Pravo.ru.
Besides, for preparing a draft law on staging the Euro 2020 in Russia the company received a prize of Pravo.ru in the category “Lawmaking”.

Moreover, SILA International Lawyers was included by the Saudi Arabian Football Federation into the list of law firms recommended to the clubs of this country for work. At the same time, partner relationships were formalized with the FC Leiria (Portugal).
Lawyers of the firm won multiple cases in different deciding bodies and jurisdictions throughout the year, the most well-known of which are the dispute in CAS between FC Rubin and its former coaches with Raul Riancho at the helm , disputes of Pavel Pogrebnyak, Aleksandr Sapeta, Anatoly Katrich against FC “Dynamo”, Gia Grigalava against FC “Pafos”. The long-standing dispute between FC “Dynamo” and Yann M’Vila finally resulted in the victory of the SILA lawyers. The football player received all the outstanding payments due to him.

Unfortunately, we cannot name numerous cases due to confidentiality concerns, in particular doping cases. We can only say that with help of the SILA lawyers all doping charges against the player of the Russian national team Ruslan Kambolov were dropped.
SILA lawyers also advised their clients in making dozens of transfers, the most famous of which were the transfers of Fedor Smolov and Benedikt Howedes to Lokomotiv, Abel Hernandez to CSKA and many others.
The SILA International Lawyers team wishes you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Stay tuned as it will get even more interesting.