DEFENCE AND SECURITY
Three questions decide whether a defence project in Ukraine goes ahead: how to get into the market, how to move the product across the border, and how to keep control of the technology. We answer all three.
Redcliffe Partners advises foreign manufacturers, investors and government customers entering Ukraine, and Ukrainian defence companies scaling abroad. Our Defence and Security sector group covers export control and international transfer permits, Defence City residency, defence procurement and government contracts, joint ventures and localisation of production abroad, EU defence funding, sanctions and anti-corruption compliance, technology transfer and intellectual property, and arbitration — from the first regulatory assessment of a product through to enforcement of an award.
One team, twelve practices. A defence mandate is almost never purely a regulatory matter. A single transaction can involve export control, intellectual property, merger control, tax, currency regulation, sanctions compliance, employment and a live dispute at the same time. Redcliffe Partners covers twelve practice areas in-house, so the client briefs one team and receives one position — instead of coordinating four advisers and reconciling their answers.
Built for cross-border work. Most of our defence mandates have a foreign element: a joint venture with a European partner, production localised abroad, an EU grant, arbitration under English law. We work inside the client’s wider team, alongside their US, UK or EU counsel, and we write for in-house lawyers who need a decision they can act on rather than a survey of the law.
In the room before the rules settle. Defence regulation in Ukraine changes every month: the special martial-law procedure for international transfers, the Defence City regime, Ukraine’s association with European defence programmes. We take a position as the practice forms, which is when clients need one — and we say plainly where the answer is still untested.
RECOGNITIONS
SERVICES
CLIENT SUCCESSES
CONTACTS
OUR TEAMS
Subsectors:
- Unmanned systems (aerial, ground, surface and underwater)
- Counter-UAS and electronic warfare
- Missile programmes and anti-ballistic capabilities
- Ammunition and munitions
- Armoured vehicles and MRO
- Defence software, AI and battle management systems
- Cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection
- Space, satellite and navigation technologies
- Dual-use goods and technologies
- Personal protection, soldier equipment and medical supplies
- Logistics, defence infrastructure and construction
- Humanitarian demining
- Early-stage defence technologies and venture investment
- Industrial co-operation and localisation of production abroad
Services:
- Export control and international transfers
- Defence City and state support
- Defence procurement
- Transactions, joint ventures and localisation
- Intellectual property and technology
- Financing and European programmes
- Compliance, sanctions and investigations
- Dispute resolution
- Personnel and information security
- Market entry and workforce continuity — advising one of the largest US drone manufacturers on entering the Ukrainian market, including deferral from mobilisation for its employees in Ukraine.
- Drone regulation — advising an Austrian aerial survey company on the regulatory requirements for operating drones in Ukraine.
- Enforcement of an arbitral award — advising the Defence Procurement Agency of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine on recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award abroad.
- IP in co-development — advising the 3rd Army Corps on intellectual property, including service members’ rights in intellectual property, and on the establishment of a joint venture with a manufacturer of military equipment.
- Export control and regulatory. Registration with Derzhexportkontrol, permits and conclusions, choice of procedural route, end-user certificates and end-use assurances, and the design and certification of an internal compliance programme (ICP).
- Transactions and joint manufacturing. Joint ventures, localisation of production abroad, defence tech investment, M&A and merger clearance.
- Disputes and arbitration. Led by Victoria Ivasechko. International commercial arbitration under defence contracts, disputes with government customers, and challenges to regulators’ decisions.
- Sanctions and compliance. Sanctions screening across the supply chain, anti-corruption compliance, internal investigations and inspection readiness.
