Next year lawyer Peter Teluk will celebrate his 25th anniversary since he settled in Ukraine, the country his parents left for the United States.
He’s spent the last 10 years in the Kyiv office of international law firm Squire Patton Boggs. Since 2013, it has been affiliated with Salcom, one of the oldest law firms in Ukraine.
Before that, Teluk led the law department of Philip Morris in Ukraine for more than four years. For the tobacco manufacturer, he handled the legal side of the construction of its $100 million factory in Kharkiv. The experience as an in-house lawyer, he says, taught him to manage corporate issues and understand the way business operates.
“In-house you realize you don’t need a 10-page memo, because you don’t have time to read it. You just want information, suggestions,” Teluk says.
But most importantly, he adds, it teaches lawyers to see the commercial value of work.
“This is something young lawyers don’t appreciate. You ask what the worth of every action is.”
When it comes to government procurement of legal services, Teluk is not happy. While it is good that competitive bids are required, he says, the choice is based on lowest cost rather than highest quality.
Teluk has never won a government contract.
As a private lawyer, he mostly handles corporate matters. In the past, he advised private investors and equity funds on the acquisition of businesses in Ukraine, such as industrial plants and banks worth millions of dollars.
However, recently the mergers & acquistions market has been quiet, without big investment projects in the pipeline. It’s unfortunate, but he hopes for improvement. In his opinion, the breakthrough industries for Ukrainian economy will be finance, infrastructure and technology.
As a person who’s been closely watching Ukraine’s development for more than two decades, he’s unimpressed with the slow progress in judicial reform and decreasing bureaucracy — two things that hinder foreign investment the most.
Despite positive shifts, like the recent abolishment of obligatory company stamps, the amount of paperwork and complexity of procedures for routine matters remain frustrating.
“Protection of investment means two primary things. First, the government and law enforcement agencies should not attack businesses with excessive bureaucracy or inspections,” he says. “Secondly, the judicial system should work but it’s still awfully underreformed. There’s so much lack of faith in the court system, and it has deserved its bad reputation.”
Overall, however, Teluk sees positive changes in corporate law and an ethos of anti-corruption taking hold. It’s something he finds new to Ukraine since the EuroMaidan Revolution that drove ex-President Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22, 2014.
