Our associate Tamar Morchiladze has co-authored a Guide on Arbitration for Judges of the Courts of Appeal in Georgia. The Guide covers all matters that fall within the competence of the Courts of Appeal under the Law of Georgia on Arbitration and includes an overview of local, as well as international case law. 

The Guide was prepared by Arbitration Initiative Georgia (AIG), a non-profit organization that aims to raise awareness of alternative methods of dispute resolution in Georgia, with the support of the European Union and United Nations Development Programme. 

The Guide may be accessed here.

We are delighted to announce that BGI Legal has once again been listed amongst the Top Tier Georgian law firms in the IFLR1000 rankings in the field of Financial and Corporate law for 2019. We are also proud to be again listed as a Top Tier firm in the field of Project Development.

IFLR1000 reviews our firm by stating, "Comfortably among Georgia's strongest firms, BGI Legal is renowned for its banking expertise and energy work. The firm has significant breadth, depth and experience in the jurisdiction, and has undertaken market-leading work in bond issues, real estate and oil and gas".

Partners Sandro Bibilashvili, Zaza Bibilashvili and Unana Gogokhia have all achieved the particular distinction of being "Highly Regarded Leading Lawyers" whilst Partner Lasha Gogiberidze achieves the premier "Leading Lawyer - Market Leader" designation. "Market Leaders" are recognised by IFLR as the standout performers in their country or practice area.

In its editorial, IFLR1000 has highlighted the following corporate and finance clients' quotes about the firm:

"Its strengths are its speed, high competence, and directness."

"The firm has very reliable professionals."

"The law firm provides a high quality and very professional service to its clients."

IFLR1000 is the only international legal directory focused on ranking law firms and lawyers on the basis of financial and corporate transactional work. IFLR1000 has been researching legal markets for 29 years with an experienced research team based in London, New York and Hong Kong. IFLR1000's research team selects leading firms based on a mix of transactional evidence, peer feedback and client feedback.

Acting for the world's largest social network Facebook, BGI successfully established a precedent of canceling a domain based on the fact that it contained another party's trademark. Georgia does not have special regulations or effective procedural mechanisms for cancellation of infringing domain names and until this recent success of BGI, cancellation of domain names registered by bad faith owners was practically impossible.

"This is a major breakthrough in this under-regulated field of Georgian law. This precedent should enable local and international trademark owners to successfully fight unauthorized use of their trademarks in domain names," says George Sarajishvili, BGI's licensed trademark attorney who represented Facebook.

On October 5, 2018, our associate Tamar Morchiladze spoke on the panel of a Workshop on Drafting Effective Arbitration Clauses. The event was organized by the US-based International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), which is the largest provider of global arbitration and dispute resolution.

Tamar addressed practical considerations related to the preparation of arbitration clauses, as well as overviewed relevant recent case law of Georgian courts. The Workshop was part of GIAC Arbitration Days in Georgia, which is held annually by Georgian International Arbitration Centre (GIAC) with the support of the European Union and United Nations Development Programme.

The conference was attended by leading experts in international commercial and investment arbitration worldwide, young practitioners from various countries, Government officials and civil society representatives.