Gleb Belavin took the floor during the seminar “The Tenant and the Owner. How to Protect your Rights?”

Gleb Belavin: “We are convinced that indexation should be stipulated, and this is what we are doing.

On August 18, a seminar was held on relevant legal and commercial issues relating to warehouse property; it was attended by representatives of more than 60 large companies, participants of the warehouse property market, developers and tenants. S.A. Ricci Company acted as organizer of the seminar.

Speakers at the seminar were Dmitry Gerastovsky, Director of the Department of Warehouse and Industrial Real Estate of S.A. Ricci, Ekaterina Lapidus, Partner of the BRANDI PARTNERS law firm, Gleb Belavin, Deputy Director General of Tenant Relations at the MLP Company, Mikhail Morozov, Managing Director at V7Sklad.

The seminar began with a presentation by Dmitry Gerastovsky, Director of the Department of Warehouse and Industrial Real Estate of S.A. Ricci, in which Dmitry presented to the participants the main trends of the warehouse property market development in 2016. He spoke about how, where and what new warehousing complexes were commissioned and are to be commissioned in 2016 in the Moscow region; he reported that the rental rates for warehouses in Moscow rose to the level of rates in Paris and Berlin, as well as identified the parameters that today have a significant impact on the level of rental rates.

Ekaterina Lapidus, Partner of the BRANDI PARTNERS law firm, in her presentation, used the VimpelCom case as an example to acquaint the audience with new concepts in legislation and the practice of applying them in lease contracts.

After that, in a “Battle” format discussion on the topic of “Tenant and Owner”, Gleb Belavin, Deputy Director General of Tenants Relations at the MLP Company represented the landlords, and representing the tenants was Mikhail Morozov, Managing Director of V7Sklad. The speakers actively discussed problems related to warehouse leases, closing and revision of lease contracts, and the ‘significant’ and ‘not very significant’ nuances facing both sides during negotiations. Mikhail Morozov asked a question that he viewed to be important: ‘Is it necessary to stipulate indexation in a lease contract, as in the past few years, due to the market conditions, it was not just omitted, but even sometimes applied with a negative sign?’

Gleb Belavin parried him: “We are convinced that indexation should be stipulated, and this is what we are doing. If a contract is signed in rubles, we propose clear rules regulating price changes for the entire duration of the contract and submit them to the tenant for approval. Normally, they do not raise any objections to the solutions we suggest, which take into account the new economic reality and are acceptable both for the tenant and landlord.”