Banking & Finance in Cyprus
10, Spyridonos Lambrou, 3106, Limassol, Limassol
Soteris Flourentzos & Associates LLC is purely a corporate & financial law firm, focusing only on the areas of law related to business activity and dedicated for international equity firms, entrepreneurs and family offices looking for an alternative to the big law firm’s template, avoiding needless overhead and overstaffed costs but getting the best service.
The founder of the firm, Soteris Flourentzos, has over 17 years of broad corporate and financial law experience, including nearly nine years at two prominent Cyprus law firms, where he represented major multinational corporations, financial institutions and private equity firms in contentious and non-contentious corporate and financial law cases of great magnitude and scale.
The firm usually handles a wide range of corporate & commercial litigation, including shareholders’ disputes, investment and post-M&A disputes, oppression on the minority, contentious companies’ dissolutions, derivative actions, commercial assets recovery, and corporate fraud. In addition, the firm is known for its ability to assist with all aspects of these transactions, including due diligence, negotiating and drafting transaction documents, advising officers and directors on their fiduciary duties, and coordinating with business teams and any financial, accounting or other specialist advisors.
The firm has also the skills-set and knowledge to provide comprehensive legal solutions according to the clients’ particular business needs, requirements and objectives, to plan, structure and execute critical corporate transactions, including the following:
- Tax optimised corporate structures and formation
- Capital raising, including debt and equity financings
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Joint ventures and strategic alliances
- Recapitalizations and corporate restructurings
Soteris Flourentzos is the founder and managing director of Soteris Flourentzos & Associates LLC. Soteris has 14+ years of broad corporate and financial law experience, including nearly nine years at two prominent Cyprus law firms, where he represented major multinational corporations, financial institutions and private equity firms in contentious and non-contentious corporate and financial law cases of great magnitude and scale.
Before executing his vision of building his own law firm with a new, innovative business model to accommodate the needs of international equity firms, entrepreneurs and family offices, Soteris was a partner at Soteris Pittas & Co.
Qualifications
- LL.B. (Hons) Law, University of Exeter, U.K. 2002
- LL.M. International Business Law, University of Exeter, U.K. 2003
Professional Experience
- Director & Partner, Soteris Pittas & Co, October 2008 – January 2015
- Senior Corporate Counsel, Trident Trust, October 2006 – September 2008
- External Associate – Legal Consultant, Patrikios Pavlou & Co, October 2006 – October 2009
- Associate Lawyer, Patrikios Pavlou & Co, September 2003 – October 2006
Professional Appointments
Since December 2012, Soteris acts as a Non-Executive Director at Banc De Binary, a Financial Services Company authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission under license no. 188/13 and registered with global regulatory authorities including the FSA, FSB and other EEA financial licensing bodies.
Memberships
- International Bar Association
- Cyprus Bar Association
- International Business Structuring Association
- Honorary Member of the Centre of International Legal Studies, Salzburg, Austria
Publications
- ‘Cyprus: Commission for the Protection of Competition’ (2005) 8 Global Competition Review Supp 37-39
- ‘Cyprus’ Anders Etgen Reitz (ed), Labor and Employment Law in the New EU Member and Candidate States (American Bar Association, 2007) 85-106
- ‘Cyprus Chapter of the ‘Study on possible national legal obstacles to full recognition of electronic processing of performance information on construction products (under the Construction Products Regulation 305/2011/EU)’, Enterprise and Industry DG, European Commision (2013)
Recent cases & transactions handled by Soteris include:
- Successfully defending the Respondent in the General Application No. 378/2014 of the District Court of Nicosia between VTB Bank v Sergey Taruta, by which the Bank was seeking the registration and enforcement of a Russian Court Judgment in Cyprus and successfully cancelled certain interim orders obtained on an ex parte basis.
- Advising HSBC Bank USA on a fixed and floating charge agreement over the assets of a certain Cyprus holding company total value of which was $50 million.
- Advising certain consortium of Companies for the acquisition of the majority stake in a Cyprus based company which in turn is the owner of the Ukraine International Airlines.
- Advising and successfully applying for Court’s approval various cross-border mergers, including that of Moravel Investments with Yukos International, and that of Zellner Holdings with Seaway Design.
- Advising and successfully applying for the authorization of Investment Firms by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, including PMT Matrix Capital Ltd