A career built on the international political, business and legal stage
An interpreter needs to be a quick thinker, capable of operating on the spot, in the heat of the moment and translating from one language to another as close to instantaneously as possible and to the highest standards. My experience as a UN interpreter allowed me to hone just such a skill set, working with and supporting some of the most high-profile government and business leaders in the world.
I am a qualified lawyer, linguist and businessman. I am a graduate of the School of Law, Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University) with a joint honours degree in law and languages. I have also completed the UN Language Training Course and an introductory course of English Law at the London School of Economics. You can read more about my credentials here.
My combined knowledge and experience in Russian law, English law and languages gives me unique perspective. It means I am acutely aware of the legal implications of one word choice over another to best reflect a witness’s, expert’s, deponent’s or interviewee’s exact meaning. I have built up an exceptionally professional skill set working in the legal, financial, banking, business and government fields.
Here is a summary of the many and varied people I have worked with, court hearings and arbitration cases I have supported with my interpretation and translation services.
International people and world leaders
I have interpreted for numerous Heads of State and Government, including Joe Biden, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Eduard Shevardnadze, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Rajiv Gandhi, and Lee Kuan Yew. I have also interpreted for senior government officials, top business executives and influential leaders, such as Henry Kissinger, James A. Baker III, George Shultz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Frank Carlucci, Bob Dole, Jack Welch, Tom Brokaw, Bernie Ecclestone, Leon Brittan, Cherie Blair CBE, QC, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Lord Jacob Rothschild, among others.
International organisations, arbitral institutions, legal and business clients
Throughout my career, I have interpreted for international clients such as the United Nations, European Parliament, OSCE, NATO, European Union, OECD, FAO, WFP, IFAD, IMO, ICAO, ITU, ILO, EBRD; Davos Forum, WANO, Energy Exchange, UEFA; Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights; IMF, World Bank / ICSID, WTO, ITC, UNCITRAL, PCA, ICC, SCC, LMAA, Swiss Chamber of Commerce, Netherlands Arbitration Institute, Singapore International Arbitration Centre, Abu Dhabi Arbitration Centre, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Gibraltar, the High Court of Justice of the Isle of Man, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the courts of Switzerland (most recently in EBRD v Abramovich and GazpromNeft – in French).
Private Enterprise
I have provided translation and interpretation services for private clients such as the London Court of International Arbitration, the Royal Courts of Justice, the Employment Tribunal, the Supreme Court of California, the Law Society and the Bar Council of England and Wales, law firms such as Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Skadden Arps, Akin Gump, Cleary Gottlieb, Quinn Emanuel, Herbert Smith, White & Case, Hogan Lovells, Dentons, Debevoise & Plimpton, Covington & Burling, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Mishcon de Reya, King & Spalding, Stephenson Harwood, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Farrer & Co, Eversheds, Ashurst, Norton Rose Fulbright, Carter-Ruck, Addleshaw Goddard, Withers, Baker & McKenzie, CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang, McDermott Will & Emery, Peters & Peters, Macfarlanes, HFW, Three Crowns, Jones Day, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, Simmons & Simmons, Penningtons Manches, Hughes Fowler Carruthers, Fieldfisher, Enyo Law, PCB Byrne, RPC, Candey, Bär & Karrer, Lévy Kaufmann-Kohler, Vischer, Bratschi AG, Betto Perben Pradel Filhol, Paul Weiss, Blake Cassels, Fladgate, Watson Farley & Williams, Signature Litigation, Pinsent Masons, KWM, Squire Patton Boggs, DWF, Osborne Clarke, Joseph Hage Aaronson, McGuireWoods, Paul Hastings, Steptoe & Johnson, Arnold & Porter, Reed Smith, Monro Wright & Wasbrough, Zaiwalla, Gateley Legal, DMH Stallard, Morrisons, Cubism, Charles Russell Speechlys, Taylor Wessing, Hassans (Gibraltar), Mayer Brown, Fried Frank, Brown Rudnick, Boies Schiller Flexner, O’Melveny & Myers, Harcus Parker, Marriott Harrison, Carter Ledyard & Milburn, Sherrards, Seladore Legal, Quillon Law, and Stewarts Law among others.
In addition, I have worked with multiple private businesses, HNWI family offices, investment funds, private equity firms, wealth managers, investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, UBS, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche, JPMorgan and many others.
For the past eighteen years I have been a London-based freelance interpreter specialising in the following areas: law (corporate, public and private international, commercial, M&A, tax, property / real estate, bankruptcy, construction, maritime, shipping, energy, insurance, IP, telecoms, medicine and pharmaceuticals, media, entertainment, competition, litigation & dispute resolution, including international arbitration, investment disputes, criminal, forensic, asset tracing, white-collar crime, corporate fraud, tort including personal injury, negligence, health and safety, media, libel, immigration, human rights, family, probate), banking and finance, insurance, investment, accounting, audit, sanctions, capital markets, power and energy including oil and gas, mining, metals, public and government relations.
Recent court cases and hearings
These are a sample of the legal actions that I have been involved in:
Supreme Court of California, county of San Diego hearings; US Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York; Supreme Court of Gibraltar; Courts of England and Wales: PrivatBank v Kolomoisky & Bogolyubov; Tatneft v Bogolyubov, Kolomoisky & Ors; Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman and German Khan v Orbis Business Intelligence; National Bank of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Kazakhstan v The Bank of New York Mellon & Stati Parties; Savchenko v Davletyarov; Navigator Equities & Chernukhin v Deripaska, including contempt proceedings in EWHC; Rusal v Crispian and Whiteleave; Berezovsky v Abramovich; Maximov v NLMK; BTA Bank v Ablyazov; Magdeev v Tsvetkov; Otkritie v Urumov; Danilina v Chernukhin and Deripaska; DIA & IIB v Pugachev; National Bank Trust v Ilya Yurov & Ors; Bank of Moscow v Kekhman; Avonwick (Gaiduk) v Shlosberg; Avonwick v Dargamo, Taruta & Mkrtchan; Slutsker v Haron; Bank St Petersburg v Arkhangelsky (both 2017 trial and 2022 re-trial); Baturina v Chistyakov; Tajik Aluminium; Berezovsky v VGTRK; EBRD v Abramovich (in Fribourg, Switzerland); Skobelev v Sophiatown (in the BVI); instructed for Cherney v Deripaska; Berezovsky v Gudavadze; Renova & Vekselberg v Abyzov.
Recent International Arbitration cases
These are a sample of the arbitration cases that I have been involved in:
November 2023 – Zurich-seated ICC arbitration: construction and operation of a transshipment terminal, a dispute involving FSU and Eastern European parties (remote consecutive, from own hub)
September 2023 – ICAC arbitration: construction dispute (FIDIC Yellow book, repudiatory breach, termination, delay damages, causation, quantum) involving FSU and Middle Eastern parties (hybrid hearing; remote simultaneous, from own hub)
May 2023 – causation and quantum stage of an ICSID / PCA oil refining & petrochemicals arbitration (in-person simultaneous interpreting at the IDRC hearing center)
May 2023 – LCIA arbitration: breach of contract, non-compete, non-solicitation covenants (consecutive hybrid, from a client hub)
March 2023 – ICSID arbitration: investment, construction & urban planning dispute involving FSU parties (simultaneous hybrid, from the IDRC hearing center)
October 2022 – PCA arbitration: gas supply dispute involving FSU and Eastern European parties (simultaneous in-person / hybrid, from Delos Dispute Resolution hearings center in Paris, France)
October 2022 – ICSID / ECT arbitration: oil refining & petrochemicals dispute involving FSU, Austrian and Romanian parties (in-person / hybrid simultaneous interpreting at the IDRC hearing center)
September 2022 – SCC arbitration: telecommunications & mobile telephony dispute involving an FSU party (in-person simultaneous interpreting at an SCC hearing center in Stockholm, Sweden)
August 2022 – ICC International Court of Arbitration case, UNCITRAL Rules – government procurement dispute involving an FSU country and a foreign contractor (remote simultaneous interpreting from a client hub)
July 2022 – LCIA – causation & quantum stages of a remitted hearing: uranium production dispute involving former Soviet states
April 2022 – LMAA, shipping and breach of contract dispute
March 2022 – LCIA, banking sector investment & distressed assets dispute involving FSU parties (in-person & hybrid consecutive interpreting at the IDRC)
October 2021 – LCIA, copper mining-related dispute involving FSU parties (remote simultaneous interpreting from an IDRC hub)
- May 2021 – LCIA arbitration: coal mining dispute involving FSU parties (remote consecutive interpreting from an IDRC hub)
- May 2021 – World Bank Group / ICSID arbitration, an ISDS case in the aviation sector involving an FSU state (remote simultaneous interpreting from a client-provided hub)
- February 2021 – ICSID arbitration, an ISDS case in the banking sector involving an FSU state (remote simultaneous interpreting from a hub)
- December 2020 – depositions by a former Soviet UHNWI for a defamation trial in the US (consecutive, from a client hub)
- November 2020 – LCIA arbitration: debt recovery dispute between former Soviet UHNWIs (remote simultaneous interpreting, IDRC hub)
- October 2020 – LCIA arbitration hearing: anti-suit injunction set-aside application (remote consecutive interpreting from an IDRC hub)
- October 2020 – ICSID / PCA arbitration: investor-state dispute in the telecoms sector (remote simultaneous interpreting from a client hub)
- September 2020 – PCA arbitration: failed joint venture between FSU and European business entities (remote sim interpreting from an IDRC hub)
- September 2020 – LCIA arbitration: debt recovery dispute involving two FSU UHNWIs (remote consecutive interpreting from an IAC hub)
- London, July 2020 – LCIA arbitration: mining dispute between FSU parties (remote consecutive interpreting)
- London, July 2020 – LCIA arbitration: default on a loan between CIS and Cypriot parties (remote consecutive interpreting)
- London, June 2020 – dispute involving a failed joint venture for the operation of a group of Ukrainian companies in the agricultural sector (remote consecutive interpreting)
- London, LCIA, 2020 – oilfield services shareholder dispute involving CIS and Italian parties
- Paris, ICC / UNCITRAL, 2019 – electric power supply dispute involving former Soviet states
- Norilsk Nickel and Interros International Investments in a dispute with United Company Rusal, including LCIA arbitration proceedings
- London, BIT arbitration, investor-state mining rights dispute involving CIS and US parties
- London, LCIA – breach of contract and fiduciary duty
- Several World Bank/ICSID / BIT expropriation-related disputes involving CIS parties
- Geneva, construction-related arbitration involving Russian and Spanish parties
- London, BIT arbitration, investor-state mining rights dispute involving CIS and Canadian parties
- London, LCIA – uranium production and enrichment-related dispute involving former Soviet states
- London, LCIA – investment-related arbitration involving Russian and US parties
- Singapore, ICC arbitration at the SIAC – construction and gas-related dispute involving Chinese and CIS parties
- GAFTA arbitration (commodities and shipping disputes)
- London, LCIA, dispute between two Russian ultra-HNWIs involving prime real estate and JV in Moscow
- LCIA arbitration (misrepresentation)
- LCIA arbitration (contract dispute – conclusion, performance, partial or full invalidity)
- London, LCIA arbitration (investment dispute)
- LCIA arbitration (civil fraud case involving CIS parties)
- LCIA arbitration (share purchase agreement dispute)
- London, LCIA arbitration (breach of fiduciary duty)
- Lausanne, CAS arbitration (two distinct cases: football – breach of contract, and allegations of doping)
- London, LCIA arbitration (breach of covenants/deeds)
- London, LCIA arbitration (default under loan agreement)
- London, LCIA (breach of contract)