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Legal portal Pravo.ru has just published its third Russian litigation market survey and ranked the most prominent law firms. Beside best litigators, the survey ranked companies with the largest case portfolio, as well as those handling the most expensive suits and the highest claims. Rustam Kurmaev & Partners took part in the survey for the first time and immediately climbed to the top of the federal ranking. The firm ranked 7th by the total amount of claims and 4th by average claim amount (RUR1,787 million) among companies handling 10 to 30 lawsuits in 2018.

Within the procedure, the researchers exploited a unique method when drawing the survey results. Pravo.ru experts analyzed 10,404 final resolutions of Russian arbitration courts adopted from January 1 to December 31, 2018. For the purposes of the analysis, the firms acting as claimants and defendants were only taken into account; litigation cost recovery suits were discarded, as well as challenges of refusals to review new evidence, etc. If a counter action had been filed within the same litigation, both resolutions and claims were considered. The only exception was the counter claims to recognize deals as invalid.

According to Pravo.ru analysts, litigation cases remain the key activity of legal firms despite the general growth in the number of suits. Experts have noticed that the most expensive suits of the past year were related to subcontractor disputes, disputes arising from state contracts, as well as subsidiary liability disputes. 

The rating was presented at Pravo.RU`s roundtable discussion The Most Significant Litigation Cases – 2018-2019 as part of the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum. Rustam Kurmaev was a speaker at the event and devoted his presentation to recovery of losses in replacement transactions of the well-known "Train Carriages dispute" (ZMK-1520 LLC v NPK JSC).

For more details on the research please see Leaders in Dispute Resolution.