Mikhail is a Russia/CIS general commercial lawyer and international commercial lawyer. Mikhail has degrees from British and Russian universities: Specialist in Law (Qualified Lawyer) degree with distinction from Moscow Institute of Economics and Law, LLM degree from Nottingham University and PhD in Law from the University of Essex. Specialty of his LLM is International Commercial Law. His PhD research was focused on comparative analysis of international contract law rules enforcement in Russia and the European Union. His other education includes course of French language at the EF International Language School (Paris, France); courses of English at the EF International Language School (Cambridge, UK); course of Accountancy and Taxes at the Academy of Business (Moscow).

Before joining the predecessor of Vasiliev Klein & Usov, Mikhail obtained extended 14 year legal experience, providing legal consultancy to Russian internationally active companies and multinational companies active in the CIS and Russia both as an in-house lawyer and as an independent legal counsel. His experience covers all major branches of Russian law applicable in day-to-day business activity of the clients. The special emphasis his work has had on international commercial law issues. At the beginning of his career Mikhail worked at the Foreign relations department of the Zlatoust Metal Mill (ZMM) OpJSCo, a leading Russian producer of special steel and alloys, belonging now to the MECHEL group. He was responsible for running export-import deals of ZMM and worked in close co-operation with such governmental and private bodies as the Customs Committee of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Chamber of Trade and Commerce, customs brokers, international departments of Russian and foreign banks. The major aspects of work were international contract law, international trade finance law, customs law and tax law.

Later, in 1997, Mikhail switched to an in-house lawyer role at Stahl-Invest Ltd, a company – trading agent of ZMM. Being a single in-house lawyer, Mikhail provided full legal back up and led development of a structure of companies supporting business activity of ZMM. In three year time from joining the company he was providing full legal back up of five companies. The profiles of the companies were international and domestic metal, alloys and row materials trade, equipment supply and installation, international and domestic transportation, computer and net service and etc. That time Mikhail added to his legal experience a big bulk of corporate law.

In 2005 Mikhail joined Allied Metals Corp (USA) and EFP Allied Metals GmbH (Germany) as a CIS/Russian counsel and representative, providing legal and intelligence consultancy on the CIS/Russian start up and full backup of all Russia/CIS related deals of the company. Simultaneously Mikhail provided legal advice for his long-standing clients. He provided advice on international commercial law, customs law and tax law issues; drafted domestic and international contracts of different type, acquisitions and divestitures; developed national laws compliance policy, risk management protection policy; prepared court and arbitration claims, represented the clients before the court and arbiter. Mikhail’s largest project at that time was the purchase of a metallurgical shop in Switzerland.

Mikhail’s latest activity immediately before joining the firm was concentrated on SMART ClJSCo, a snack products producer, the distributing net of which has a federal coverage. The main issues Mikhail dealt with were the EvrAzES Customs Union legal regulation on trade and transportation, China-Kazakhstan-Russia sale and purchase, China-Kazakhstan-Russia transportation of goods, Russia – Kazakhstan dealer contract sale chains and trademark legal protection. This work included a big bulk of compliance of business activity with the multinational laws issues.

Mikhail had a traineeship with the Directorate of Legal Affairs of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg) where he worked at the intergovernmental level on civil law reforms in Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. Mikhail is a winner of several international open competition awards: the British Chevening award, the Joint PhD award by the Open Society Institute (Soros fund) and British Government, and the INTAS award provided by the European Commission. Also Mikhail is the author of a number of articles, including: – M Badykov, ‘The Russian Civil Code and the Rome Convention: Implied Choice of the Governing Law’ (2008) 33 (II) Review of Central and East European Law 181; – M Badykov, ‘The Russian Civil Code and the Rome Convention: applicable law in the Absence of Choice by the parties’ (2005) 2 Journal of Private International Law 269; – M Badykov, ‘The Characteristic Performance Test in the Russian Civil Code and 1980 European Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations’, in A. L. Kolodkin (ed.), Forging a Common Legal Destiny: Liber Amicorum in honour of William E. Butler (London, Wildy, Simmonds & Hill, 2005), pp. 727 – 746.