OUR SPECIALIZATION

Thanks to practical experience in legal support of unconventional financial instruments Stepanovski, Papakul and Partners. Legal services LLC efficiency assists its Clients with accessing foreign financial loan markets, as well as with conducting a large number of due diligence reviews.

External finance raising

To finance their operations, Belarusian organizations would generally borrow from Belarusian banks by pledges of their real property or other objects of fixed assets. However, for major investment projects it is required to use special instruments and forms of attracting investments. Project financing is one of possible instruments.

Nowadays a number of European banks and foundations, as well as special international finance organizations such as European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), International Finance Corporation (IFC) provide project financing for the Belarusian market. However, access to these resources is complicated because of specific formalities determined by standard procedures typical for these financial institutions.

We offer our Clients a legal review for raising foreign financing and borrowing on international capital markets by:

• providing consultations on issues of the Belarusian legislation regarding raising external/foreign loans, inter alia, obtaining the approval for capital transactions from the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus;
• following up the process of conclusion of credit/loan agreement and related supporting documents, including unconventional agreements (that are generally not typical of the Belarusian law), subordinated deeds, share retention deeds, mortgage of enterprises as property complexes, debit agreements;
• adapting and explaining to the client foreign law provisions of loan agreements (and other financial documents) with a complicated structure that is not typical of the Belarusian law.

Also, as part of work on such projects, SP&P performs standard corporate inspections of the Client’s company, as well as inspection, review and assessment of project and financial agreements, which results in issuing a legal opinion based on the findings, with further submission to the client and a bank or a non-financial institution.

We provide support to foreign and international banks in allocation of loans to Belarusian borrowers by:

• assessing the applicability and enforceability of the provisions of standard loan agreements governed by foreign law, as well as by adapting them, when necessary, to imperative provisions of the Belarusian law;
• assisting with building an optimal structure of the supporting document for each specific borrower, taking into account their available assets;
• providing consultations and drawing supporting documents on the Belarusian law;
• following up the process of conclusion and direct signing of contracts/agreements;
• performing due diligence of borrowers and issuing legal opinions to banks in order to comply to Condition Precedent.

HEAD OF DIRECTION