Olena Perepelynska spoke at the international conference “6th DIS Baltic Arbitration Days”

Partner, Head of CIS Arbitration practice of INTEGRITES Olena Perepelynska delivered a speech at the international conference DIS Baltic Arbitration Day that was dedicated to the theme “Commercial arbitration involving states or state-owned entities”.

In her presentation, Olena told about the peculiarities of the application of the force majeure clause in contracts with state-owned entities, and whether such entity can be responsible for the actions of the state. She also considered  whether a state entity can be discharged of obligation under the contract with a private entity if an action of the controlling state has brought about the event.  Olena drew attention to the different forms of connections and dependence between the state and state-owned entities, the ability of the state to influence  the transactions by public entities under state control with other contractors, the objectives of the state during the committing its actions and their consequences, as well as many other factors.

“Certainly, the application of the force majeure clause in contracts involving state-owned entities has its own specifics. There are numerous examples in arbitration practice when arbitrators in order to prevent potential abuses applied additional criteria to a state entity which had referred to the force majeure event in its home state as grounds for releasing it from contractual liability,” – comments Olena.

The event gathered over one hundred arbitration practitioners from over 20 countries, including private practice and in-house lawyers, arbitrators, academics, students and businesspersons.

The Baltic regional group of the German Institution of Arbitration (Baltic DIS) organized the conference, and the Ukrainian Arbitration Association was the media partner of the event.

Olena Perepelynska is Partner at INTEGRITES, President of the Ukrainian Arbitration Association and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb). Olena is listed as arbitrator at leading arbitration institution in Austria, Belarus, the Czech Republic Georgia, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Poland, Romania, and. Vietnam. She is recommended among best arbitration and dispute resolution practitioners in Ukraine by Chambers Global 2017; Chambers Europe 2017; Legal 500 (2016); Best Lawyers International 2017; Who’s Who Legal: Arbitration 2017, and has recently received Ukrainian Legal Award as the Best Arbitration Lawyer.