“AEQUITAS’s lawyers demonstrate strong analytical skills and have a comprehensive and complex approach.”
Chambers Asia Pacific 2024
“AEQUITAS is very knowledgeable, proactive and has been very helpful in understanding local requirements. The team is flexible and efficient.”
The Legal 500 2024
AEQUITAS Banking & Finance practice dates back as long as the history of the firm itself. One of the firm’s very first projects was advice to Chase Manhattan Bank intending to set up a joint investment bank with a Kazakh party in 1993.
AEQUITAS’s standing clients include major banks and finance organizations, as well as different issuers of securities. American International Group, Inc. (AIG, Inc.) has been the firm’s permanent client since 1997. Starting 2006, the firm has been regularly advising Deutsche Bank on a variety of matters. Promsvyazbank JSC and HSBC came to be the firm’s client in 2008.
The firm’s partners and associates advise and represent clients in connection with diverse local business financing transactions, security transactions accompanying bank loans and other financings for acquisition in assets, shares and commodities, and derivative transactions.
AEQUITAS draws on its wealth of experience to legally support projects involving the issue and placement of shares, depositary receipts and bonds on financial markets. AEQUITAS finance practice comprises work with troubled loans, including restructuring, rehabilitation and bankruptcy issues.
International rating agencies Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500 specifically acclaim AEQUITAS’s Banking & Finance practice, ranking it in the same grades with international law firms.
Services
- Legal support of bank loans (from simple unsecured loans to complex structured credit facilities) and special project finance involving parties from different jurisdictions.
- Advice on financial leasing and trade finance matters.
- Legal support of repo and reverse repo transactions on securities markets.
- Due diligence of banks and financial companies.
- Advising on all aspects of derivative transactions regulation, including preparation of legal opinions as to the lawfulness and enforceability of certain provisions of ISDA Master Agreement and ISDA Credit Support Annex, including different aspects of applying netting, set off and other procedures. Recommendations regarding amendment of standard provisions of ISDA Master Agreement and ISDA Credit Support Annex, subject to local legislation specifics, in order to lower entrepreneurial risks.
- Work on derivatives, including preparation of legal opinions regarding lawfulness and enforceability of certain provisions of ISDA Master Agreement (including netting & set off), credit support, etc.
- Work on debt restructuring projects, including assistance in the development and implementation of efficient restructuring strategies for local debtors and assistance to local debtors’ creditors initiating the restructuring.
- Preparation of formal legal opinions, standard or custom-made (in cases of securities placement – opinions both according to Regulation S and Rule 144A formats) with respect to local counterparties and collaterals.
- Comprehensive legal research and preparation of legal opinions regarding capability of certain or all possible types of Kazakhstani counterparties to enter into certain or all types of derivative transactions with different underlying assets.
- Legal support of the issue and placement of securities, including debt securities and securitization projects, as well as shares and depository receipts (GDRs and ADRs) in the course of their secondary private or public offering or initial public offering (IPO).
Brochures
LEGAL UPDATES & PUBLICATIONS
You can find a complete list of AEQUITAS publications and information memoranda in Press Center
