OREANDA-NEWS. November 28, 2007. CJSC IES' Legal Department has been declared Russia's best legal department in the Power Industry category, according to a study by Korporativny Yurist (Corporate Lawyer) magazine in association with the consulting firm Pynes & Moerner Executive Search Consultants, IES-holding's press service announced. At the award ceremony in Moscow on November 22, the honorary plaque was handed to Ekaterina Pustovalova, Vice President for Legal Affairs and Director of Legal Department at CJSC IES.

Thus, CJSC IES has been ranked among companies such as OJSC Mobile TeleSystems, OJSC Alfa-Bank, Renova Group, OJSC TNK-BP Holding Company, OJSC SUEK, OJSC Norilsk Nickel Mining and Metallurgical Company, OJSIC Ingosstrakh, PIK Group, and other major companies.

Competition nominees included legal department directors of leading companies: investment and commercial banks, management companies, financial and insurance corporations engaged in timber and processing, mechanical engineering, metals, energy and power, oil, oil and gas, chemicals, coal, trade, construction, insurance, and consumer goods.

Ms Pustovalova commented on the meaning of the award as follows: "Our victory confirms that IES-Holding is becoming an increasingly important market player and is leading the industry. We have been able to show the good results exactly because our company is very actively developing towards serious and complex objectives. This award gives evidence of high professionalism of all the lawyers of the power holding company and of a responsible approach to business and an orientation towards practical results."

Russia's Best Legal Department is the only professional competition that has become widely recognised by both the legal community and specialists assessing the quality of legal support for business operations.

This year the procedures for nomination and voting have been changed, say the organisers. To be nominated for the award, a legal department must meet a number of criteria, i.e. nominees faced quite tough requirements from the beginning. Voting was based on the "best select best" principle.

Candidates were nominated and voted for by members of the expert panel, partners of international and Russian law firms, among them Clifford Chance CIS Ltd. and Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners; and heads of legal departments of companies such as Troika Dialog Investment Company, Millhouse Capital, OJSC Alfa-Bank, Basic Element Group, OJSC TNK-BP Holding Company, Deutsche Bank Russia, Renaissance Capital Management Company, Interros Holding Company, OJSC EuroChem Mineral and Chemical Company, Evrazholding Financial Company LLC, OJSC VimpelCom, ROSNO Group, PepsiCo Holdings LLC, and others. When judging the competition, criteria were taken into account such as professionalism and reputation, readiness to accomplish large-scale high complexity tasks, project implementation experience, ability to competently interact with external advisers, and comments on the value of the experience of a legal department for the legal community as a whole, including on the basis of the results of reports at conferences.