RGP gets bonanza as King & Spalding red flags its Moscow office

RGP gets bonanza as King & Spalding red flags its Moscow office

Russian law firm Rybalkin, Gortsunyan and Partners adds three dispute lawyers to boost its offering

Leading Russian law firm Rybalkin, Gortsunyan and Partners (RGP) has received an unexpected bonanza with a team of three corporate dispute lawyers set to join it following the US law firm King & Spalding's decision to pull out of Russia.

The team set to join RGP is led by King & Spalding local managing partner Sergey Komolov. Kings & Spalding announced in March that it was closing down its Moscow office this summer.

Komolov, with counsel Ilya Zotkin, associate Stanislav Rzhaksenskiy and some support staff, will join RGP in July.

The veteran lawyer Komolov, with a quarter of a century's experience by his side focus on corporate, finance, and disputes – including national and international litigation and arbitration proceedings. He is dual-qualified in the US and Russia and had set up King & Spalding's Moscow office.

Komolov has donned several hats successfully including his stint with the World Bank and as a diplomat before qualifying as a lawyer.

Komolov said his new firm would stay on "best friends" terms with Kings & Spalding and continue to co-counsel on ongoing matters. He further added that RGP was exploring the possibility of taking over King & Spalding's offices on lease with an eye on its future expansion.

The fate of RGP's other partners Olga Kozyr and Alla Naglis, and the remaining associates, is unknown so far.

Komolov was associated with King & Spalding for a decade. He had joined it from Hogan Lovells in 2011. The move reunites Komolov and Zotkin with their former Hogan & Lovells colleague for four years Ilya Rybalkin, who now co-heads RGP's disputes department.

RGP's managing partner Suren Gortsunyan welcomed the trio saying the move marked a shift in his firm's growth, at a time when RGP had "transformed from a smaller size boutique firm to become a serious player".

RGP had hired services of IP counsel Maria Samartseva from Hogan Lovells in May and promoted arbitration counsel Dmitry Kaysin as a partner in January.

Kaysin, along with six other lawyers including partners Dmitry Dyakin and Vladimir Pestrikov, joined RGP from its Russian rival Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners in June 2020 in a lateral movement.