This year the first topic of the conference was "Winning and Losing in The Court of Public Opinion: Lawyers, Business Disputes, and the Media From a Global Perspective'. The panel managed to launch very interesting discussion and visitors of the conference could understand better approaches of lawyers to mass media from US perspective, UK and Russia.

The next session I took part was an interactive discussion 'Russia’s “pivot” to Asia'. Joe Liu from the Hong Kong International Arbitration and Noradele Radjai from Lalive law firm informed us on what Russian lawyers need to know about Hong Kong as arbitral seat.

The 3rd session was 'Arbitration of Commodity Disputes’. International arbitration is increasingly a preferred forum for resolving commodity disputes as it can be adapted to the particular needs of professionals in this field, who aim at resolving disputes in line with their way of conducting business: simply, fast and in a cost-efficient manner Since Russia is one of the major players on the commodity market, in particular with regard to raw materials, the topic became of high interest and importance to Russian lawyers.

The session with the following topic ‘Choice of Forum: Where and How?’ was visited by many Russian and UK trial lawyers since that roundtable examined the pros and cons of UK, US and Russia as jurisdictions to litigate and how the enforcement of a potential judgment affects the choice of forum.

During the closing plenary session, the audience was engaged in an interactive discussion about some of the most recent developments in Russian and CIS-related litigation and arbitration, with a focus on the most critical questions that emerge during the course of the day’s panels and other topical issues. I also took my chance to share my views on, and experiences of, current “hot topics”.