Nikita Deynega

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERTISE SUMMARY

Nikita has about 15 years’ experience in the legal sphere.

He specialises in a wide range of tax, customs and antitrust matters related to both day-to-day operational and project activities of clients, including investments and M&A transactions. In addition, the lawyer advises corporate and private clients on international and cross-border taxation.

Nikita is also distinguished by his substantial experience in assisting audits by state authorities and in settling disputes with tax, customs and antitrust authorities before and during court proceedings.

His litigation experience covers successful representation in commercial courts, including The Russian highest courts, such as the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. The expert had been involved in the drafting of precedent legal positions on certain categories of cases, which are now used by a wide range of law enforcers.

In addition, Nikita’s areas of expertise include the assessment of compliance of business conduct with tax, customs and antimonopoly law, analysis of the application of statutory preferences, and identification of tax reserves.

CAREER

Prior to joining Maxima Legal, Nikita worked at Gazprom Neft PJSC. As in-house lawyer Nikita specialised in tax, customs and antitrust disputes resolutions. A positive economic effect of disputes settled by Nikita was over than 20 billion RUB.  The lawyer also provided consulting support to the company’s in-house legal service clients, including top finance executives.

Previously to Gazprom Neft PJSC, the expert worked in Russian legal consulting and also led legal services departments of companies in the commercial sector.

SIGNIFICANT RECENT MATTERS

• Establishing a judicial precedent confirming that a declarer is entitled to customs benefits and allowing the declarer to realise a refund of overpaid customs duties worth up to 15 billion RUB
• Obtaining for the first time in commercial court practice a positive example of exercising the right to claim more than RUB 3.3 billion RUB in income tax losses, initially denied as a result of reclassifying a loan/investment relationship and an offset operation against a loan/interest contribution to the charter capital as forgiveness of debt
• Exercising the right to tax exemption for intragroup financial aid transactions and accounting for an income tax loss of over 6 billion RUB as a result of a pre-court settlement with the tax authority
• Identification and recovering of a tax provision in the form of over 650 million RUB VAT. Tax was paid on importation of property into Russia and was not deductible due to the specifics of the commission scheme applied by the taxpayer and his counterparty
• Successfully challenged the denial of a VAT deduction of over 450 million RUB as part of a pre-court and court settlement of a challenge to nine desk tax audits
• Identification of 300 million RUB of tax provisions for energy efficient equipment and obtaining judicial precedent confirming their validity
• Successful judicial settlement of a €250,000 dispute over the applicable VAT rate as a result of obtaining a binding legal position from the Russian Constitutional Court on the tax consequences of international transport, forced into several stages

OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

• Tax Consultant Discussion Club expert
• Guest lecturer at St Petersburg State University and the Higher School of Economics 
• Referee of the annual Russian and international taxation moot-court competitions

 RECOGNITION

• 2024, Recommended Lawyers by Pravo-300 (regional research) — Tax consulting & disputes
• 2024, Recommended Lawyers by Pravo-300 (federal research) — Private Wealth 
• 2023, Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper Individual Rating of Best Lawyers — International Projects
• 2023, Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper Individual Rating of Best Lawyers — Tax
• 2023, Kommersant Publishing House Individual Rating of Best Lawyers (rising stars) — Taxation: tax advice   
• 2023, Kommersant Publishing House Individual Rating of Best Lawyers (rising stars) — Compliance 
• 2023, Recommended Lawyers by Pravo-300 (regional research) — Tax consulting & disputes
• 2023, Recommended Lawyers by Pravo-300 (federal research) — Private Wealth 
• 2022, Recommended Lawyers by Pravo-300 (regional research) — Tax consulting & disputes
• 2021, Leaders League (Russia) — Corporate Tax 
• 2015, Winner of the International Taxation Competition held by the Russian branch of the International Fiscal Association 

EDUCATION

2013                Law Faculty of St Petersburg State University (undergraduate)
2016                Law Faculty of St Petersburg State University  (Master’s degree in Tax Law)

PUBLICATIONS AND EVENTS PARTICIPATION

Nikita is an author of scientific publications in the Nalogoved (Tax manager) and the Nalogovy Vestnik (Tax Bulletin) legal magazines, speaker at conferences and forums on taxation

LANGUAGES

English, German

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