Olga Chentsova and Yelena Pestereva partook in the IBA Annual Conference 2018
On 7-12 October 2018, AEQUITAS Managing Partner, Olga Chentsova, and AEQUITAS Partner, Yelena Pestereva, partook in the annual conference of the International Bar Association (IBA) in Rome. The IBA Annual Conference is one of the key and greatest business events gathering more than 5,000 delegates this year. This is a unique platform to get information and knowledge, share tactical experience and strategic vision with the world leading experts, as well as a perfect place for networking.
The awesome week-long event in Rome opened with a dinner and ambitious show amid the parks and gardens of the Villa Aldobrandini overlooking the charming town of Frascati.
The main business programme was traditionally opened by the IBA President, Mr. Martin Šolc. The delegates were offered more than 200 sessions dedicated to a wide range of branches and practices. The key sessions focused on global concerns and new challenges of the global law reform, such as the dualism of artificial intelligence, human rights and gender inequality, independence of judicial power, journalism and private freedoms. Due to the Conference location, speakers touched upon the pool of political issues pertaining to three cutting-edge problems of the EU: upcoming Brexit, migration crisis and trade wars. The keynote speakers invited to the event were Mr. Romano Prodi, Former President of the European Commission and Former Prime Minister of Italy, Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke, a prominent UK politician and Member of Parliament, Ms. Mary Robinson who was the first Prime Minister of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and Dr. Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian public official and Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
The relevant IBA committees prepared a number of additional interesting sessions for discussion of the new trends in certain branches and practices. The Fourth Industrial Revolution identifies the development vector of the global economy and sets demanding requirements to the level of cyber literacy of the key market players and their advisors. The process of digitalization has many years ago been launched on the conservative legal market: the products of Legal Tech are globally introduced into business processes of major law firms, optimizing and making automatic all standard legal work from the data searches to due diligence. Such solutions as "constructors" of contracts and other documents almost exclude the need in paralegals, reducing the advisor's labor efforts and the client's costs. This entails the market share reallocations and forthcoming armaments race, as well as the reallocation of budgets, capitals and staff. Other topical issues of digitalization, such as data protection, cyber risks and cyber security, implementation and regulation of blockchain technologies and use of cryptocurrencies, gave rise to numerous discussions.
Beside the hard-driving daily programme, AEQUITAS partners were invited to evening parties, including those dedicated to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of EPAM and the 30th anniversary of Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Partners, a major law firm in Italy.
Thanks to the Conference organizers and colleagues from other law firms for the excellent, fruitful and cultural week! Hope to see you all in Seoul.
AEQUITAS Team