Cross-Border
Legal Counsel in Ukraine

Ukraine is a civil-law jurisdiction with codified private and procedural law, with commercial disputes heard by its commercial courts. For foreign parties, the practical reality is that cross-border enforceability and recovery depend heavily on asset location and structuring, and Ukraine has pursued reforms aligning aspects of its commercial and judicial framework with European norms.
Our work focuses on the cross-border recovery dimension and the coordination of the Ukrainian element with proceedings in the other jurisdictions a matter touches.

For arbitral awards, Ukraine is a party to the New York Convention, and recognition and enforcement of foreign awards proceed under the Convention's framework. In our experience, a New York Convention award is generally a more reliable basis for enforcement against assets in the region than reliance on a foreign court judgment, whose recognition depends on treaty relationships or reciprocity and can be less predictable.
For foreign court judgments, recognition in Ukraine depends on applicable bilateral or multilateral treaty arrangements and on reciprocity, and is assessed against local public-policy requirements. This makes a well-structured arbitration clause, providing for a Convention award, the more enforceable choice in most cross-border contracts with a Ukraine counterparty.
The practical work is choosing the enforceable route, identifying assets, and — critically for the region — coordinating the Ukraine element with parallel action in the other jurisdictions, frequently EU holding jurisdictions such as Cyprus or the Baltics, where a debtor's assets are often layered. This coordination is the core of our CIS Region practice.

Ukraine is a New York Convention party, and international arbitration in neutral seats is a common mechanism for cross-border commercial disputes involving Ukrainian parties. Ukraine has an international commercial arbitration framework, and neutral seats are frequently chosen for enforceability.
Our focus is the enforcement and recovery strategy across the jurisdictions where assets sit, coordinating any arbitration or foreign proceeding with action in the relevant jurisdictions.

Matters in the region are coordinated through our CIS Region desk, which works in Russian and understands the layered holding structures — frequently routed through EU jurisdictions such as Cyprus and the Baltics — that internationally mobile principals from the region commonly use. We treat the local element as one node in a coordinated recovery map rather than a standalone proceeding.

Ukraine-connected recovery is a cross-border exercise depending on reaching assets in accessible jurisdictions and coordinating across them. VLO's CIS Region desk combines regional language capacity with familiarity with the holding structures through which such assets are routed.
For creditors, this means a recovery strategy focused on where assets can be reached, run by one partner coordinating the whole map, with appropriate discretion.