Profile details
About Maria Zaitseva
Maria has vast experience of advising clients on major cross-border and local M&A transactions and joint ventures with focus on Russia (whether involving Russian parties, assets or businesses), and on the wide range of general corporate and business matters Russia-related investments can present.
Since 2002 she has successfully led the teams assisting clients with a number of high-profile mergers and acquisitions (including those made via public auction process) and joint ventures that included project finance element, most of which had had a significant impact on the Russian economy.
Maria excels in structuring the most complex deals and implementing new legal concepts to the clients’ best interests. Her broad caseload also includes corporate restructurings, representing clients in corporate disputes, advising clients on option programmes and significant commercial contracts.
Maria speaks Russian and English and has a basic knowledge of German.
Recent work
- Advising Polyus Gold on its joint venture with Rostec for the purposes of their ultimately successful joint participation in the auction to obtain a mining licence for the Sukhoi Log gold deposit in Irkutsk, the largest gold deposit in Russia.
- Advising NIPIGaz, which is 50 per cent owned by Sibur, on the proposed joint venture with foreign partners to participate in the front-end engineering and design for the Arctic LNG-2 project for Novatek and for the development of similar projects in Russia.
- Advising Telconet Capital on the sale of 30 per cent of the shares in Yota, and related licensing, IP transfer, shareholders' agreement and financing arrangements.
- Advising Polyus Gold on its joint venture with Polymetal to develop the Nezhdaninskoe gold deposit in Yakutia.
Qualifications
- MGU law school
- Moscow State University (JD with honours)
- International Association of Accountants, accounting and tax