Former EY Partner, Igor Venediktov, to lead DLA Piper’s Moscow tax practice
DLA Piper has appointed Igor Venediktov as head of its Moscow tax practice. Igor joins DLA Piper from Snegiri Group (the former ST Group), one of Russia’s leading development companies, where he was Chief Financial Officer.
Prior to joining Snegiri Group in 2008, Igor headed Ernst & Young’s Real Estate Tax practice in the CIS. He has over 15 years’ of experience in advising clients on various inbound and outbound acquisitions, international tax and transfer pricing planning, real estate issues, international finance and leasing transactions in Russia. Igor has been involved in numerous foreign and domestic direct investment, M&A transactions and IPOs in the real estate, banking, metallurgical, chemical and automotive industries. His practice focuses on optimising taxes from corporate restructuring, holding, development, acquisition, disposal and debt / project financing of real estate in Russia and overseas.
Constantine Lusignan-Rizhinashvili, DLA Piper Regional Managing Partner for the CIS, said: “I’ve known Igor for years and I am delighted that he chose to join us. He is a brilliant tax lawyer and he brings a wealth of experience to an already leading practice.”
Roderik Bouwman, EMEA Head of Tax at DLA Piper added: “Igor’s hire is an important part of our plans to expand and strengthen the tax practice across EMEA. Our clients want to be able to rely on a consistent, high quality of advice across the region, so we are putting the team in place to address these needs. I welcome Igor and look forward to work with him.”
The Russian practice has made a wave of appointments since June 2008, with the hires of Vyacheslav Khorovskiy, Jonathan Socolow (Finance and Projects) and Brian Konradi (Corporate) in Moscow, and Alexey Chichkanov (Finance and Projects) in St Petersburg.
Igor holds an Economics degree from the State University of Management (1986) and graduated as a National Certified Auditor from the Economics faculty of the Moscow State University (1997).
In Russia DLA Piper has offices in Moscow and St Petersburg, which are led by Regional Managing Partner for the CIS, Constantine Lusignan-Rizhinashvili. The Russian practice has over 100 fee earners, which includes 16 partners. The practice assists clients in all aspects of the law, and is well known in the areas of corporate, M&A, tax, real estate, energy, projects and foreign investment.