On October 28, 2011 leaders of the CIS legal market, members of CIS Leading Counsel Network (CIS LCN) organized a Business Breakfast in Moscow.

The event offered an overview of Anticorruption Legislation in different CIS countries namely Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan as well as a unique local insight regarding the latest developments within the legal environment in the region.

Among the speakers - managing partners of CIS LCN firms including Irina Paliashvili (RULG - Ukrainian Legal Group), Olga Chentsova (Aequitas, Kazakhstan), Konstantin Mikhel (Vlasova, Mikhel & Partners, Belarus), Nariman Ramazanov (Fina LLP, Azerbaijan), Vladimir Dolzhikov (ACT, Turkmenistan), and senior lawyers at Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners Victoriya Burkovskaya and Andrey Porfierev.

The participants discussed recent developments in Anti-Corruption Legislation and spoke about the entities responsible for actions that would be deemed corruptive, stressing that there is no uniform explanation. Special attention was paid to the legal restrictions which are closely connected to the question of gift giving to government officials.

Discussing the responsibility for actions that are deemed corruptive, the speakers pointed out that primary responsibility in most CIS countries lies with the receiver of the gift and implies different levels of responsibility.

Finalising the discussion representatives of the CIS firms mentioned that the formal transferring of foreign anticorruption legislation to the local offices or subsidiary companies in the CIS countries does not work effectively from the point of view of bribery prevention and requires adapting to local market.

The event agenda also included presentation of the second edition of the CIS LCN book Comparative Summary of Anticorruption Laws in the CIS Economic Region.