Maxim Ali graduated from the law faculty of the St Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences with honours. At the beginning of his legal career, Maxim provided in-house legal support to an education institution after which he worked for a number of years in law firm in St Petersburg.

In 2017 Maxim Ali joined the team at Maxima Legal. In his role as a Senior Associate, Maxim has shown that he is a responsible specialist and works to the highest standards. In the time that he has been working at the firm, Maxim has established himself as an expert in the field of information law as well as in e-commerce and media law.

Also Maxim has successful experience in defending clients ‘ interests in specialized courts in the Intellectual Property Court and the Chamber of Patent Disputes. At the same time, the lawyer managed not only to defend the interests of the client, but also to develop a new position for the Russian judicial practice, to which the court referred in its decision.

Maxim has worked with Russian, foreign and international companies from a wide range of industries including the IT sector, healthcare, metal and car producers, real estate and the entertainment industry.

• Drafting a cross-licensing scheme for logo and trademark rights within the group of companies, as well as a strategy for protecting the corporate identity by registering trademarks in 8 countries worldwide.
• Supporting several pilot and unique public-private partnership projects in the IT sphere. The complexity of the projects was due to the fact that at the time of their implementation similar cases were not available in the Russian legal practice, and the legislation on which the projects were based was adopted six months prior to their launch and had no clear interpretation on a number of issues.
• Advising IT residents of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre on use of “free” software licensed under the Open Source Initiative and Free Software Foundation projects.
• Successfully acted for a client in a complex dispute over patented micro-organism strains, which was crucial for shaping court practice due to its specific subject matter. The first instance lasted 2.5 years and the appeal proceedings lasted another 9 months, during which 11 hearings and several examinations took place.
• Development and introduction of a commercial secret regime, as well as negotiation and execution of agreements on obtaining rights to production secrets (know-how) within the framework of implementation of joint projects with international partners on localization of medical devices production in Russia.
• Successful defence of the client’s interests and recognition of illegal blocking of a website with over 8 billion visitors per year.
• Comprehensive legal support of a blockchain-based financial platform for raising $104 million through an ICO considering the laws of several jurisdictions simultaneously, including the Isle of Man, Cayman Islands and Comoros, the UK, the USA, Sweden, Finland and a number of EU and South-East Asian countries.
• Supporting joint projects of the with providing legal assistance to two joint projects between with the The D. D. Shostakovich St Petersburg Academic Philharmonic Hall and internet companies Yandex and LitRes and assisting with negotiations and entering into a contract for joint recording of the Philharmonic Orchestra and the renowned Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji with one of the world’s largest recording labels – UNIVERSAL MUSIC.

Co-chair of the Legal Committee of the St Petersburg International Business Association (SPIBA)

2012 – St Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences, Law Faculty (degreewith honours).

Russian (native) and English.