The Hong Kong International Arbitration Center (HKIAC) has added a Russian legal scholar to its council.

Anton Asoskov will serve a six-year term, advising the secretariat on policy direction and other general management matters as part of a 35-member council, chaired by Allen & Overy partner Matthew Gearing. Twelve other law firm partners are members of the council, including Hong Kong-based Ronald Sum from Addleshaw Goddard, London-based Andrea Menaker from White & Case and New York-based Meg Utterback from King & Wood Mallesons.

Asoskov is a professor teaching civil law at Lomonosov Moscow State University and international civil and commercial law transactions and disputes at the Russian School of Private Law, both in Moscow. He is a member of the Russian Council for the Development of Arbitration, which in April approved HKIAC as the first foreign arbitral institution to administer cases in Russia. He is also a member of the presidium and head of the nominating committee for corporate disputes of the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation.

From 2011 to 2013, he was a consultant at Debevoise & Plimpton's Moscow office. Previously, he was head of legal at Russian oil and gas company JSC Central Geophysical Expedition.

Asoskov is the second Russian national to have recently joined the HKIAC. Last month, Victoria Khandrimaylo, a former Clifford Chance corporate and real estate associate in Moscow, joined HKIAC as a deputy counsel.

Last year, leading Chinese firm Fangda Partners hired Olga Boltenko, a Russian national, as an international arbitration partner in Hong Kong from CMS, where she was counsel, to launch an investor-state arbitration practice.

|

Related stories:

Does Hong Kong Have What It Takes to Be Asia's Arbitration Hub?