Services for business security

Vlasta Consulting maintains close, long-term partnerships with international clients, helping them expand across Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe. Our team understands the risks foreign companies face and has extensive experience preparing investigations and screening reports to US and European standards. We offer risk-assessment solutions that meet a wide range of business requirements:

• KYC / AML compliance
• Comprehensive screening against FCPA / UKBA requirements
• Political-risk screening (politically exposed persons and related issues)
• Sanctions-risk assessment

We also assess commercial opportunities and potential partners against the client’s internal standards and develop our own methodologies for specific client requests.

Hiring is one of the most important and sensitive processes in any organisation. A company’s financial success depends heavily on the quality of its people.

Timely, thorough screening of every candidate significantly protects the business from dishonest employees and reduces other risks later on.

Today, personnel screening usually involves several stages, each requiring paid specialist work as well as the cost of running a dedicated HR security function.

First the candidate completes a questionnaire and is interviewed by HR. After a successful interview, the file goes to the security function for clearance.

Business growth means expanding commercial activity in two dimensions. The first is geographic — the countries and regions where the company wants to operate. Success there requires broad expertise in local conditions: law, economics, politics and many other factors that can affect the business. The second is functional: when a company enters a new market or industry, it also needs accurate information on market dynamics, strengths and weaknesses, and the balance of power among key players (or the lack of one), among other things.

We use data from internal sources and open information to build an objective risk assessment for doing business in the country and sector where your company plans to operate.

When a company plans to expand its business into a region that is new to it, it may encounter a number of circumstances specific to that region/country/territory that significantly affect business processes. To avoid the possible negative impact of these factors, it is necessary to assess these so-called territorial risks in advance and take appropriate measures. Among territorial risks, the following groups typical of any region can be distinguished:

• National/religious characteristics — attitudes toward particular ethnic/religious/social groups in the region, mentality traits that show up in business processes, etc.
• Political risks — the impact of changes in the political situation in the country on the business environment
• The crime rate typical of the territory in general, and of the sector related to the business being promoted in particular
• The level of corruption, as well as acceptable “traditional” methods of legal interaction with government bodies for the region
• The level of terrorist threat in the region directed against the population as a whole and against particular ethnic/religious/social groups

• Fraud investigations
• Detection of unlawful appropriation of assets
• Detection of business-ethics violations
• Investigations related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A)

Any business can face misconduct by partners or even employees. These “growing pains” often need a careful approach that cannot be delivered from inside the company. Whether the concern is fraud, embezzlement or collusion with hidden parties, the situation should be examined thoroughly rather than ignored — at the risk of serious losses of revenue, stability and reputation.

Vlasta Consulting has an extensive portfolio of projects that exposed unethical conduct and breaches of national law.

Requirements for the security of sites and companies as a whole are tightening; failure to meet them can lead to significant fines. When acquiring an asset, the buyer also needs such an audit to minimise risk. Audits of this kind vary by facility type and cover physical guarding, access control (ACS), CCTV, organisation of site security measures, development of procedures and documentation, and an overall assessment of whether the protection perimeter matches the company’s risk profile.

Any contract, internal policy or routine procedure can hide legal risk: an unfavourable clause, a gap in authority, a mismatch with regulatory requirements, or a weak position once a dispute has already begun. Such flaws are rarely visible in day-to-day work, yet they decide the outcome of an inspection, a counterparty claim or litigation.

Legal security diagnostics means reviewing the company’s documents and procedures before risk turns into loss. We examine contracts with counterparties and employees, local acts, approval workflows and typical deal scenarios: where the company takes on unnecessary obligations, where its rights are unprotected, and where the document set would not withstand an inspection or a court case.

The client receives a clear picture of legal risks and priorities: what to fix in documents and processes now, and what to strengthen in advance — so that a prepared position is ready for a dispute or engagement with public authorities.

Here we take a comprehensive approach. The focus is entirely on the success of the event itself from a security standpoint, and the toolkit goes beyond core security services. Alongside transport and personal security, a project may also include:

• Security support when compiling event participant lists (information analysis and screening)
• Security assessment of premises and sites, evacuation planning and coordination in non-standard situations
• Organisational support for travel (logistically sound movement plans, obtaining passes, coordinating participants, and similar tasks)

Our company helps locate individuals and their assets across Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe. We use open-source analysis and on-the-ground field investigations to find fraud victims, heirs, family members and other parties to legal or commercial matters. Asset tracing strengthens the client’s position in court and facilitates debt recovery.

Complete, accurate information is a critical precondition for success in civil and commercial disputes. Lack of experience and legal knowledge can change the course of a case and leave even well-founded claims unsatisfied.

Legal protection of a trademark in Russia requires state registration with Rospatent. With years of experience dealing with Rospatent, we help design a registration and subsequent protection strategy, refine the sign to be protected as a trademark and the list of goods and services it will cover, and assist in overcoming objections from Rospatent and third parties.

During trademark registration you may face financial and time losses linked to clearing existing signs similar to yours. We identify possible risks and minimise them using databases and search systems whose algorithms continually improve.

A web application developed by our company to protect rights holders’ rights and reputation online can detect content of any type and carry out pre-trial work with website administrators, hosting providers and domain registrars.

Vlasta Consulting LLC has many years of experience protecting intellectual property rights. In Russia we were among the first to design and launch a trademark protection programme in 2006.

Working with the police and conducting raids at production sites, retail outlets and warehouses holding counterfeit goods remains one of the most important and effective tools of that programme.

A domain name is often treated as a technical detail of a website, yet for the client it is both the company’s address and an extension of the trademark. A third party may register a lookalike domain, buy a brand address that has been released, or place a shop, phishing page or redirect to a competitor on it. Until the dispute is resolved, traffic and trust leave the rights holder.

Domain name protection means dealing with such registrations before they harden into someone else’s asset. We identify cybersquatting and disputed domains, gather evidence of the link to the brand and pursue recovery of the name — through the registrar, hosting provider and available procedures, and where needed together with a cease-and-desist claim and judicial trademark protection.

The client gets more than a one-off search of search results: a clear picture of which domains already create risk, what can be recovered or blocked, and how to stop the infringement reappearing under a new address.

One effective way to counter illegal import and circulation of counterfeit goods is engagement with the Federal Customs Service of Russia and foreign customs authorities on intellectual property protection.

Our company provides a full range of services representing rights holders before customs authorities in anti-counterfeiting matters.

Development of an intellectual property protection strategy for the rights holder.

Before any approach to customs authorities, the main routes and methods of supplying counterfeit goods into the country must be identified, and a sequence of actions to stop the illegal activity must be defined.

Entry of trademarks and copyright objects into the Russian customs register of intellectual property objects (TROIS).

Lawyers of Vlasta Consulting LLC represent rights holders in protecting their intellectual property rights before courts of all levels. This route can be especially effective when the rights holder wants to combat infringement without involving law-enforcement authorities.

Under Russian law, a rights holder may claim:

• recovery of damages caused by the infringer;
• recovery of statutory compensation from the infringer;
• withdrawal from circulation and destruction of counterfeit goods at the infringer’s expense.

In addition, the law does not limit the rights holder’s choice of remedies, and civil claims in court can usefully complement administrative or criminal measures already taken.

Preliminary consultation.

A company that complies with the law often still loses profit to unfair competitors. By unlawful means — departing from contractual terms or avoiding tax and customs formalities — they offer goods on the market at prices far below the original. The scale and systemic nature of such violations, linked to fragmentation of the Russian market, called for a targeted set of measures to protect the legitimate segment.

Intellectual property is often a company’s main asset, and its legal protection demands precision at every stage — from trademark registration through to assignment of rights.

Errors in contractual work or a formalistic approach to brand protection give competitors and bad-faith market players room to challenge or take over the results of years of investment.

Practice shows that fixing those consequences is far more expensive and time-consuming than preventing them with proper legal support from the outset.

Our team builds a coherent system of legal protection for intangible assets: we register trademarks, prepare licence agreements and assignment contracts, and represent the company in disputes and in court, keeping legal risk to a minimum.

An inspection, complaint or filing with an authority rarely stays a formality. How the position is framed and what documents accompany it decide whether the matter stays within procedure or turns into a fine, an order, a refusal to protect a right, or a drawn-out dispute.

We prepare that position and support the company where the authority decides: FAS, Rospotrebnadzor, Rospatent, Roskomnadzor, the Federal Customs Service, law-enforcement and judicial bodies. We gather materials, prepare filings and replies to requests, and sequence actions within the procedures the law provides.

The client leaves with a clear contour: which authority to approach, how to substantiate the position, and how to respond if the authority has already made the first move.

Business growth means expanding commercial activity in two dimensions.

The first is geographic — the countries and regions where the company wants to operate. Success there requires broad expertise in local conditions: law, economics, politics and many other factors that can affect the business.

The second is functional: when a company enters a new market or industry, it also needs accurate information on market dynamics, strengths and weaknesses, and the balance of power among key players (or the lack of one).

We use data from internal sources and open information to build an objective risk assessment for doing business in the country and sector where your company plans to operate.

Lawyers of Vlasta Consulting LLC represent rights holders in protecting their intellectual property rights before courts of all levels. This route can be especially effective when the rights holder wants to combat infringement without involving law-enforcement authorities.

Under Russian law, a rights holder may claim:

• recovery of damages caused by the infringer;
• recovery of statutory compensation from the infringer;
• withdrawal from circulation and destruction of counterfeit goods at the infringer’s expense.

In addition, the law does not limit the rights holder’s choice of remedies, and civil claims in court can usefully complement administrative or criminal measures already taken.

Preliminary consultation.

One effective way to counter illegal import and circulation of counterfeit goods is engagement with the Federal Customs Service of Russia and foreign customs authorities on intellectual property protection.

Our company provides a full range of services representing rights holders before customs authorities in anti-counterfeiting matters.

Development of an intellectual property protection strategy for the rights holder.

Before any approach to customs authorities, the main routes and methods of supplying counterfeit goods into the country must be identified, and a sequence of actions to stop the illegal activity must be defined.

Entry of trademarks and copyright objects into the Russian customs register of intellectual property objects (TROIS).