Yurchenko said an analysis made by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce showed an increasing number of corporate conflicts caused by hostile merger attempts. In 2003, one in four complaints lodged with the chamber's consulting unit were about hostile mergers; in the first quarter of this year, every other complaint is takeover-related, he revealed.
The situation has deteriorated in recent time owing in no small measure to the inadequacy of effective legislation, Yurchenko pointed out. This is why the Industry and Commerce Chamber is proposing amendments to related laws, he said.
Specifically, the Chamber wants the Arbitration and the Civil Procedure Codes to include clauses that would take to account plaintiffs withdrawing their declaration, define more clearly the criteria of adequacy of action on a suit, and establish exclusive jurisdiction for arbitration courts based in the same district as the company filing a suit. It also wants amendments to the federal law on corporations, for instance one that would declare invalid shareholder meetings unauthorized by the Board of Directors and held in violation of convention procedure, Yurchenko said. According to him, the Chamber has presented the proposals to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Federation Council (parliament), and included them in its recommendations for the governmental commission on Russian businesses' competitiveness.
