OREANDA-NEWS. May 30, 2012. The representatives of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company took part in the working of II Saint Petersburg International Legal Forum which was held from May 16 to May 19 in the “northern capital”. The main legal event of the year gathered over 2,000 delegates from 50 countries. The forum was opened by Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev. The event included the plenary meeting “Legal Policy in 21st Century: New Challenges of Law in the Global World”, and also 38 thematic round-table discussions.

The representatives of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company actively participated in the Business program of the Forum.

The Director of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company subsidiary in Saint Petersburg, Vladimir Khrabrykh, took part in the round-table discussion “Legal Regulation of International Exhibition Activity: Ensuring Protection of Cultural Values”, which was focused on the questions of protecting the rights of culture which are often in conflict with the right of ownership, rights of sovereignty and human rights. When exhibitions are organized, cultural values are threatened by different lawsuits, filed by persons who claim the museum exhibits in this or that way. Also, the question of insurance coverage of objects of art, when they are sent to exhibitions to foreign countries, is particularly pointed for the institutions of culture. The international practice of exhibition activity already has the existing and various methods of solving these problems, used with varying success. Vladimir Khrabrykh told the round table participants about many years of experience of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company’s work in the sphere of cultural valuables insurance.

The representatives of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company also took part in the work of the round-table discussion “Legal Protection of Monuments of Architecture and Development of Modern Cities” and, answering the questions of the press service of the forum about the results of discussion, emphasized that it is very important for survey of real estate objects undertaken for insurance to clarify the matters of adherence to the laws in the sphere of monuments of architecture protection by the insurer.

Making a presentation at the round-table discussion “Legal Department in the Epoch of Globalization. Russian and International Experience”, Ivan Novikov, Director of Legal Department and member of the Board of Directors of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company, marked the necessity of the preferable choice of Russian jurisdiction in the work of legal departments of national legal entities. In particular, he attracted the attendees’ attention to the appropriateness of reference to the Maritime Arbitration Commission (MAC) and the International Commercial Arbitration Court (ICAC) under the Chamber of Trade and Commerce of the Russian Federation in the agreements with Russian participants of external economic activity and the participants of legal relations related to commercial navigation as to specialized courts of arbitration related to the settlement of disputes within the framework of such legal relations.

I. Novikov drew the discussion participants’ attention to 80-year experience of the work of these organizations, moderateness of arbitration disputes and reasonable character of limitations related to terms of proceedings, and also a possibility to choose the international applicable law upon agreement of the parties.

Besides, the presenter noted that MAC decisions, just as ICAC decisions, are subject to recognition and enforcement outside Russia in accordance with 1958 New York Convention about recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitration decisions.

Talking about lowering the load of state courts, Ivan Novikov said in the interview to the forum organizers, “We must resort more actively to arbitration proceedings, especially in relation to obligations that appear in the sphere of transportation and finances, where the arbiter needs narrowly specialized knowledge allowing to make a decision on time, which is in line with the present-day dynamics of economic relations.”

Due to the specific character of the insurance industry, the activity of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company is connected with conducting a great number of legal proceedings at the same time. In this connection, the company puts efforts to help improve the national system of disputes settlement, increasing the speed of its functioning, fair settlement of disputes, exclusion of subjective factors.