Natalia Baratiants focuses on corporate and securities transactions; international transactions in Russia; and the Russian legislative, regulatory and political system.
Ms. Baratiants represents both Russian and Western companies in connection with their investments in the former Soviet Union and in countries in Central and Eastern Europe. She advises Russian and international companies in structuring strategic and portfolio investments and in gaining access to the international debt and equity markets. She actively assists in transactions involving strategic alliances and joint ventures. Her experience includes the representation of a major Russian company with its ADR program and its convertible bonds. Ms. Baratiants assists Russian companies in raising capital in foreign stock markets. She has represented clients with interests in Russia and CIS in a variety of privatization-related matters and has extensive experience working with relevant Russian government entities such as the Central Bank, the Ministry of State Property and the Federal Financial Markets Service. Prior to joining Akin Gump in 1993, she worked as an in-house counsel at the Ministry of State Property.
Ms. Baratiants has represented Russia’s largest oil company in the following securities transactions:
- the formation of LUKARCO Joint Venture with Atlantic Richfield Company and the establishment of a $4.5 billion project finance facility
- the private placement of the company’s shares and ADR totaling $260 million
- two convertible bond offerings totaling $452 million
- the listing of its shares on the London Stock Exchange, including sale of an interest owned by the federal government; LUKOIL was the first Russian company to do this
- litigation before the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado in connection with a claim filed by Archangel Diamond Corporation for an amount in excess of $4.5 billion
- advising on corporate governance matters related to compliance with the LSE Listing Rules
- the creation of a strategic alliance with the U.S. oil company ConocoPhillips and formation of a joint venture to develop oil fields in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in the northern part of Russia.
Ms. Baratiants also advised the Center for Capital Markets Development (CCMD) in connection with the World Bank-funded projects to develop new securities legislation (including the drafting of federal laws and regulations of the Federal Commission for Securities Market).
Until 1991 Ms. Baratiants was a research associate at the Institute of State and Law of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow, where her areas of concentration were the civil law, international business transactions and U.S. commercial law.
Ms. Baratiants received her D.L. summa cum laude from the Moscow State University in 1983 and her Ph.D. in law in 1987 from the Institute of State and Law of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow. She received her LL.M. in 1992 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ms. Baratiants is licensed to practice in the Russian Federation. She is fluent in Russian and English and proficient in French.