Over the period from August 30, 2012 to March 26, 2014, teamed with a consortium of experts administered by the Kyrgyz Mining Association, Kalikova & Associates has participated in drafting the medium- and long-term mineral development strategy of the Kyrgyz Republic (Strategy). The Strategy has been drafted at the request of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Economy and with technical support from USAID REFORMA. Kalikova & Associates lawyers have contributed to the Strategy by developing recommendations for improving Kyrgyz mining law, including the issues associated with mining licensing, state assessment of mining and geological projects, pretrial dispute resolution.
On March 31, 2014, the Strategy, Action Plan and Budget were submitted to the Kyrgyz Ministry of Economy for their presentation to and approval by the Kyrgyz Government.
The full version of the Strategy is available on the official site of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Economy.
Since 2014, Kalikova & Associates law firm is a member of the International Trademark Association (INTA), whose main goal is to promote trademarks and related intellectual property rights in order to protect consumers and ensure fair and efficient trading activities. From May 10th to May 14th, Managing Partner of Kalikova & Associates Ulan Tilenbaev will take part in the INTA 2014 annual conference dedicated to trademark protection issues. The conference will unite thousands of professionals from around the world, including lawyers, marketing managers, entrepreneurs and all those who are interested in the intellectual property issues. The event will take place in Hong Kong exhibition center.
On March 14, 2014, Kalikova and Associates lawyer Ruslan Sulaimanov took part in a seminar on Arbitration Process at the ICA, organized by the ICA and National Legal Corporation.
The seminar focused on advantages and disadvantages of arbitration; a practical approach to the arbitration clause; initiation of arbitration; formation of the arbitration tribunal: selection and appointment of arbitrators; appointment of the hearing date and procedure; arbitration procedure; collection and presentation of evidence; enforcement of an arbitral award.
On March 12, 2014, Kalikova and Associates announced the winners of the 2014 K&A Scholarship Award and handed over award certificates and KGS 10,000 cash prizes to them. In addition, the finalists of the award have got the opportunity to take up an internship at our firm.
Scholarship winners are:
- Emir Tailakov (Kyrgyz State Law Academy). In his competition essay, Emir explored the problems of investor’s rights protection in the process of the state property privatization;
- Ulukbek Turdubekov (AUCA). His competition essay was devoted to the problematic issues of ban on endowment/donation among commercial organizations;
Winning candidates for internship are:
- Aidin Kalmatov (AUCA), who explored in his essay the regulation of electricity tariffs in the Kyrgyz Republic;
- Raima Kalandarova (AUCA), who presented an essay devoted to foreign agents as a new definition of NGOs;
- Bekjan Muhamet uulu (KSLA). Bekjan’s essay was devoted to the taxation issues in the Kyrgyz Republic.
The annual K&A Scholarship Award is a long standing tradition of Kalikova and Associates aimed at supporting the new generation of talented lawyers in the Kyrgyz Republic.
On January 27-30, 2014 K&A Managing Partner Ulan Tilenbaev and lawyer Jyldyz Tagaeva took part in the Turkey & Central Asia Mining Investment Summit held in Istanbul. The Summit was organized by Mines and Money.
Within the Summit Ulan Tilenbaev and Jyldyz Tagaeva lead the pre-conference workshop on “Ensuring the granting of mining and exploration licenses and guaranteeing the security of tenure in Central Asia’s key mining countries”. Licenses, permits and the application process in Central Asia, namely in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Issues of effective approaches to dealing with mining industry regulators, effective methods for settling disputes over the permit and license applications, security of tenure of licenses and improvements of subsoil legislation in Kyrgyzstan were analyzed during the pre-conference workshop.
On January 20-21, 2014 K&A Partner Alexander Ahn, Lawyer Albina Rakhmidinova and Junior lawyer Azima Bokoshova took part in the two-days seminar-workshop “Effective tools of debt collection” organized by “D.A. Collection”. The main purpose of the seminar-workshop focused on building and management of effective debt collection process know-how. In addition, the seminar-workshop was devoted to issues related to structure of negotiations with a debtor at Soft-Collection, Hard-Collection and Legal Collection stages, strategies of debt collection, organization and structure of collection service.
Seminar-workshop was conducted by a debt collection expert, business consultant of “D.A. Collection” Elena Viktorovna Kamynina. Management and senior specialist of banks, microfinance organizations and law firms took part in this event.
A Roundtable on Peculiarities and Advantages of Mortgage by Operation of Law was organized by К&А jointly with IFC, State Registrar and Bank Union of Kyrgyzstan for the banking and microfinance sector on November 26, 2013. Mortgage by operation of law, as a relatively new and effective tool for enforcing creditors’ rights, was introduced in 2009, but has not become widely used among the professional financial market participants. The first real estate transaction involving mortgage by operation of law occurred in March 2013, resulting in the simultaneous registration of title in the name of the real estate owner and of encumbrance on this title in the form of pledge (mortgage) in favor of one of the banks which provided the mortgage loan.
As the organizers of the roundtable pointed out, being primarily aimed at promoting mortgage loans, mortgage by operation of law is beneficial for all interested parties as it helps avoid executing preliminary and principal pledge agreements. Thus, mortgage/pledge arises by operation of law when a real estate is acquired with the borrowed/lent funds of certain creditors which fact should be stated in the sale and purchase agreement. This instant security instrument presumes a more simplified sequence of actions, automatic charge free registration of pledge and lesser risk of contesting a transaction, which is quite important at this moment.
K&A’s representatives lawyer Albina Rakhmidinova and junior lawyer Azima Bokoshova took part in the regional conference on “The role of Public-Private Partnership in Adaptive Practices in Agriculture, in Water and Forest Sectors” held on November 25-26, 2013 and organized by the Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia (CAREC) in collaboration with Asia Pacific Adaptation Network (APAN).
Albina Rakhmidinova made a presentation on "Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in Kyrgyzstan through the private partner’s perspective", addressing the current status of PPP in Kyrgyzstan, measures taken by the Government for PPP development in the country, guarantees provided to the private partner for implementation of the PPP project, and recommendations regarding for the private partner for the purposes of its interests protection in PPP project in Kyrgyzstan.
This conference has become an another stage of a series of events held by CAREC together with APAN devoted to the improvement of awareness and involvement in the process of adaptation of all the structures of society: government bodies, executive and self-government bodies, business structures and public organizations. Within the framework of the event the participants had a chance to review issues related to PPPs in Central Asia, potential problems and difficulties on the way to implementation of formulated strategies, planned steps and implemented decisions, including role of PPPs in the process of adaptation to climate change at local, national and regional levels.
K&A lawyers Jyldyz Tagaeva and Asylgul Balybaeva took part in the training on “The New Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard and New Challenges of Fiscal Sustainability in the Kyrgyz Republic” held in Issyk-Kul on November 21-23, 2013. The training was organized by Soros Foundation-Kyrgyzstan and conducted by the trainers from Eurasia Extractive Industries Knowledge Hub (Khazar University, Azerbaijan).
The training was devoted to the transparency of the extractive industries of Kyrgyzstan, the new EITI Standard, fiscal sustainability issues and stabilization funds suitable for Kyrgyzstan. Key stakeholders of the extractive industries of Kyrgyzstan took part in the training, where they had a chance to familiarize with the EITI standards and discuss issues related to transparency, reporting, sustainability of the extractive industries of Kyrgyzstan.
On November 7, 2013 K&A lawyer Asel Momoshova took part in the International Data Protection conference organized by the Russian Federal Service on supervision over communication, information technology and mass communication. The conference was devoted to the topical issues related to data protection in Russia, EU member states and US, legislative developments, judicial practice in the field of data protection and privacy.