BGP Litigation lawyers possess strong expertise in supporting family disputes, matters of division of marital (community) property, payment of child support, arranging for child custody and visitation, challenging marriage contracts and wills, restriction or termination of parental rights, establishing and challenging paternity.
BGP Litigation has a unique practice that handles cross-border parenting disputes, returning children in case of unlawful removal or retention under the rules of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, temporary departure from and permanent move outside of the Russian Federation in case of relocation of one of the parents and the other parent’s disagreement.
To prevent financial risks, we take special case to analyse the client’s family, inheritance, and business situation, and issues of protecting business owners or managers and their families from subsidiary liability for the company’s debts. We structure asset ownership and management via marriage contracts, marital settlement agreements, wills, private funds and international trusts, allowing to keep private capital intact and ensure uninterrupted ownership and management of the same.
We render the following legal assistance to our clients:
Advising on issues of family law and inheritance planning.
Representing the client before notaries public, public authorities, and courts in family and inheritance disputes, cases on the return of unlawfully removed and retained children, and the protection of honour, dignity, and business reputation.
Conducting negotiations and mediation procedures.
Drafting marriage contracts, marital settlement agreements, agreements on child support and custody, wills, inheritance contracts, and agreements between heirs on dividing the estate.
Advising clients on matters of recognition and enforcement in Russia of foreign marriage contracts, marital settlement agreements, wills, etc.
Analysing the client’s family and business situation to minimise inheritance risks, and elaborating a strategy for handing down wealth to the future generations.
Structuring asset ownership and management via private and testamentary funds, foreign trusts and foundations.
Supporting cross-border inheritance and probate procedures in foreign jurisdictions.
Preventing financial and corporate risks in case of dissolution of marriage or inheritance, bankruptcy of the spouses (or one of them), subsidiary liability or creditors’ claims.
BGP Litigation lawyers engage in human rights activism and elaborating legislative proposals to improve the existing legal framework, teach workshops at the country’s top universities, and sit on the expert councils with public authorities and non-governmental organisations, as well as have authored monographs on family law.
VICTORY IN THE DISPUTE ABOUT RAISING A COMMON CHILD AFTER DIVORCE
The BGP Litigation team was able to protect the interests of Anastasia Kozhevnikova after a divorce from a famous athlete.
Situation:
The dispute between the parents about the place of residence, the procedure for communication and the maintenance of the young son arose two years after the divorce. In the course of its consideration in court, the father took the child out of Russia in an unknown direction without notice and approval from the mother.
Result:
BGP Litigation lawyers managed to obtain a judicial act on the determination of the child's place of residence with the mother before the court's decision entered into legal force, to establish the child's country of residence and to initiate the procedure for his return in accordance with the provisions of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which allowed to reunite mother and son in the shortest possible time.
The BGP Litigation team was able to determine the place of residence of the child with the mother in Russia, establish such a procedure for communication between father and son, which would take into account the wishes of the mother and the interests of the child, and recover alimony in a firm sum of money, which exceeds the subsistence minimum by 3 times.