AGA Partners successfully defended client's rights in the Supreme Court in the case of the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction of October 25, 1980.
A dispute arose between a citizen of the Republic of Poland and a citizen of Ukraine regarding their minor child. The daughter of the parties was illegally detained by her mother on the territory of Ukraine, despite the fact that the country of permanent residence of the child from the moment of her birth was the Republic of Poland.
Immediately after the fact of illegal change of the child's country of residence, our client applied to the Central Authority of the Republic of Poland for protection of his rights and legitimate interests with a request to facilitate the child's return from Ukraine to Poland.
Due to the fact that the child's mother refused to return the child to the country of her permanent residence, the father was forced to apply to a Ukrainian court with a claim of recognition illegal the child's detention in Ukraine and for returning her on her permanent residence.
Within the court proceeding, the AGA Partners team managed to prove that the child was born and resided in Poland before she was illegally detained in Ukraine by her mother, and that the mother illegally detained the child in Ukraine.
As a result of the court proceedings, the Supreme Court fully upheld our client's claims and ordered the mother to return the child to the country of residence - the Republic of Poland.
The client's interests were represented by AGA Partners at the appeal and cassation stage, which overturned the first-instance court's decision and protected the child's father's interests under the October 25, 1980 Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Partner Iryna Moroz commented on the case as follows:
"The decision of the court of cassation in this case will inevitably become a reference point and a source of legal conclusions for the proper and fair consideration of further cases in this category of disputes, contributing to the conscientious implementation of the 1980 Convention in Ukraine."
The AGA Partners team was led by partner Iryna Moroz with the support of senior lawyers Oleksandr Gubin and Olena Sibirtseva.
Congratulations to Aminat Suleymanova on being elected to the Board of Ukrainian Bar Association!
Read more about the meeting of the Legal Assembly and the election of the Association leadership for 2021 - 2023 years at: https://cutt.ly/WmzRKh1
Senior associate of AGA Partners, advocate Olena Sibirtseva acted among experts and speakers of the online course "Family Law" by Online Law School and covered the issue of division of spouses' property.
Course program and registration
AGA Partners' team is recognized by the international rating Best Lawyers in 6 nominations:
- Agriculture and Rural Affairs: Aminat Suleymanova
- Arbitration and Mediation: Aminat Suleymanova, Ivan Kasynyuk, Iryna Moroz, Ievgen Boiarskyi, Iurii Gulevatyi
- Family Law: Aminat Suleymanova
- International Arbitration: Aminat Suleymanova, Ivan Kasynyuk, Íryna Moroz, Ievgen Boiarskyi, Iurii Gulevatyi, Oleksandr Gubin
- Litigation: Aminat Suleymanova, Ivan Kasynyuk
- Trade Law: Aminat Suleymanova, Ivan Kasynyuk, Iryna Moroz, Dmytro Koval
AGA Partners is recognized as a Law Firm of the Year in Arbitration Practice based on the results of the Legal Awards 2021!
We are grateful to "Yurydychna Praktyka" for the recognition!
Link to source
On May 27, AGA Partners partner Iryna Moroz will speak among the speakers of the "First Annual Arbitration Conference" organized by the Ukrainian Bar Association during the session "Court assistance in taking of evidence in support of arbitration".
“Dear friends, I am glad to invite you to the II Forum of Women's Leadership, organized by the Ukrainian Bar Association.
For the third year now, we are going to make our professional life better, more harmonious and more successful. On June 3, we will talk about real and imaginary limitations, about focus and ambiguity, about ambition and motivation.
The event is a great platform to see each other, hear and energize for the whole year. As for me, this is without a doubt my favorite professional event of the year. See you at the Women's Leadership Forum,” invites Aminat Suleymanova, managing partner of AGA Partners, member of the organizing committee of the event.
Join our meeting on June 3rd!
Program on the website
This year the AGA Partners team was marked in the TOP-5 of the best in the following nominations:
Law Firm of the Year in International Trade;
Law Firm of the Year in Arbitration Practice;
Family Law Firm of the Year;
Managing Partner Aminat Suleymanova - Best Partner of the Law Firm;
Partner Iryna Moroz - Arbitration Lawyer of the Year.
The Civil, Family and Inheritance Law Committee of the UBA announces a week of family law and invites you to participate in a special series of events with the participation of AGA Partners lawyers.
On May 19, senior lawyer of AGA Partners Alexander Gubin will speak on the topic "The Hague Convention of 1996. Real opportunities vs. Ukrainian realities of application".
On May 21, senior lawyer of AGA Partners Elena Sibirtseva will speak on the topic "Division of property of persons living in one family without marriage registration: strategy and tactics of protection".
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“There is a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together”. AGA Partners are familiar with this ancient wisdom, but in its own legal way: "There is time to file a claim, and there is time to hold it back". Indeed, this interpretation allowed us to successfully defend the interests of our client in the recent arbitration at the London Maritime Arbitrators Association.
Our client’s opponent, a Swiss trader in agricultural products, claimed in arbitral proceedings compensation of demurrage allegedly incurred in the port of Bandirma, Turkey.
In the submissions, the AGA Partners team consisting of Iryna Moroz, Ievgen Boiarskyi and Pavlo Lebediev noted that the claim had been filed almost two years after the ship was discharged and therefore shall be time-barred.
This situation was quite sophisticated as the charter party itself did not establish a time bar. At the same time, it contained a reference to SYNACOMEX 2000, a model grain voyage charter party, which allows parties arbitration to commence arbitration only within a year after the discharge of the vessel.
The shipowner insisted that the parties excluded the effect of this provision since the main charter party did not contain any limitation period.
In the end, the arbitral tribunal accepted our client’s position that the claim is time-barred under the charter party as it does not stipulate any clause that would contradict a provision on the limitation period in SYNACOMEX 2000.
As a result, AGA Partners achieved another victory: the arbitrators left the claim of our opponents without consideration due to the expiry of the limitation period and awarded the client compensation of the legal costs.
This case vividly exemplifies that it is important to take into possible contradictions between trade contracts and their standard forms to avoid potential disputes on this matter.
According to the results of Legal 500, AGA Partners was once again recognized as one of the leading firms in the Ukrainian legal service market. AGA Partners team was recommended as the top firm in private client practice with Tier 2 ranking, in international trade practice with Tier 2 ranking, and also in dispute resolution practice with Tier 3 ranking. Partner Iryna Moroz was recognized among the leading lawyers in the practice of international trade. Managing Partner Aminat Suleymanova and partner Iryna Moroz are also recommended among the leading lawyers in the private client practice. Senior associate, Oleksandr Gubin, received recognition as "Rising star".
Partner of AGA Partners Iryna Moroz gave a lecture at the Legal High School and told the audience how to minimize risks when paying in international trade, and illustrated payment methods in international trade using the example of real foreign economic contracts.
Link to the source. The material is available in Ukrainian and Russian only.
The protection of violated rights of investor is not limited to national courts or investment arbitration. The experience of AGA Partners confirms the possibility of successfully resolving construction and land disputes in the European Court of Human Rights. It is this protection mechanism that our Client has chosen in order to compensate for losses caused by the seizure of the land plot and the termination of the construction project.
As a result of a long consideration of the case «Construction and Investment Group 1 v. Ukraine» in the European Court of Human Rights, on 17 December 2020, a decision was made in favor of the Client on the responsibility of the state of Ukraine for violation of the right to peaceful possession of property, established by the Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 to the Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The dispute arose between the Client and the Kiev City Council in 2008 and concerned the termination of the right to lease a land plot for the construction of a multi-storey residential building with underground parking in Kiev.
The Client entered into a lease agreement of a land plot with the Kiev City Council for the construction of a multi-storey residential building in Kiev and received all the necessary approvals and permits for the construction work. In addition, foreign investments were attracted to implement the construction project.
However, during the preparatory stage of construction, local authorities canceled the decision to allocate the land plot to the Client, proposed to terminate the lease agreement and assigned to the land plot the status of a public garden. The Client applied to the national courts in order to recover the losses incurred caused by the seizure of the land plot, however, the Ukrainian courts of all instances unreasonably refused to satisfy the Client's claims.
As a result, a decision was made to apply to the European Court of Human Rights in order to establish a violation by Ukraine of the Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and to obtain fair compensation.
AGA Partners succeeded in proving that the indicated actions of the State of Ukraine, represented by its state authorities, prevented the Client from using the land plot for the construction of a multi-storey residential building without providing any compensation, which is a violation of the right to peaceful possession of the land plot.
At the moment, the case is at the stage of consideration of the “just satisfaction claim”.
Partner Iryna Moroz commented on this case as follows:
«The decision in the case shows that any interference by State authorities with the peaceful possession of property can only be justified if it is in the legitimate interests and is accompanied by the provision of a reasonable compensation. In this case, the state authorities terminated the Client's right to lease a land plot without providing any compensation, which was the main reason for establishing the responsibility of Ukraine. It is important that national authorities, when interfering with the right to peaceful possession of property, take measures to prevent or mitigate adverse consequences, for example by offering reasonable compensation or providing another plot of land, which was not done in this case».
The details of the case can be found by clicking on the following link: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-207984.
The AGA Partners team was led by partners Aminat Suleymanova and Iryna Moroz with the support of associate Yelyzaveta Holovan.
The Ukrainian KNU Vis Moot Team, whose trainers included AGA Partners associate Pavlo Lebediev and a graduate of Stockholm University and our former colleague Leila Kazimi, for the first time in history entered the TOP-64 teams from all over the world in the international student competition in commercial arbitration Willem C . Vis Moot.
AGA Partners congratulates the team on great achievements and is ready to continue supporting the student community for a worthy representation of Ukraine in the international arena!