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Uncharted Territory and War

The global legal industry is still dealing with repercussions stemming from the war in Ukraine. It's been more than two months since the Russian invasion began, but for law firms and their clients, dealing with sanctions—both in the West and in Russia—and dropping Russian clients—even sanctioned Russian state-owned entities—has proven difficult. 

Last week, Latham & Watkins was finally given the OK to withdraw from representing one of Russia's largest, and now-sanctioned, state-owned banks—a client it took on in a case related to the 2014 downing of a passenger plane over Ukraine. Back in April, Latham lawyers moved to withdraw from the litigation involving VTB Bank, noting that its client had agreed to allow the firm to withdraw. A U.S. judge finally granted the firm permission to stop representing VTB in the litigation but warned the bank that if it failed to quickly hire new attorneys, it risked being in default.

Latham is lucky. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is still waiting for permission to withdraw from a lawsuit in which it has represented VEB Bank, another sanctioned bank tied to the Russian state. Last month it asked a U.S. judge to grant it permission to withdraw from the case and allow another lawyer to take over the representation of the Russian bank. Unlike Latham in the VTB Bank case, Freshfields in this case even provided the name of a lawyer as substitute counsel. But that lawyer, who is from a small IP firm (and this is not an IP case) and is not yet admitted to practice in Washington, D.C. where the case is being litigated, has not yet submitted a notice of appearance. So Freshfields is still officially VEB's lawyer.