English Contract Law in Commodity Trading: Interlegal intellectual property

Hundreds of experts from agro-trading and logistic companies have studied fundaments of English law and trade contracts at Interlegal training courses.

This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Interlegal for the first time will held online traditional training course English Contract Law in Commodity Trading - on February 25-26, 2021. Like at previous events, traditional speaker will be Richard Faint, an experienced British expert, ex-GAFTA  arbitrator, LMAA  arbitrator, FOSFA  arbitrator. His participation is expected by registered attendees and invariably enjoys success.

However, this year event is complicated by unprecedented pressure from GAFTA (Grain and Feed Trade Association) headquarters.

GAFTA management, inter alia, is going to take exceptional measures, including, in particular:

• intimidation of market players, directly or indirectly prohibiting them to participate at Interlegal event;

• blocking Interlegal posts on Facebook containing the announcement of the certain event;

• threats of litigation.

It goes without saying that we got surprised on such close attention of the esteemed Association (a motor of global grain market !) regarding Interlegal Law Firm. On one hand, GAFTA creates excellent advertising for the training course, by means of its media leverages, while on the other hand, it gives a contradictory signal to the entire global law market.

GAFTA management states that the official reason for such pressure is the protection of intellectual property for its own formal commercial training courses upon trade contracts. It also holds online training courses, making such situation highly competitive for the respected Association.

Claims against Interlegal concerning infringements of GAFTA intellectual property look especially surprising, because it is obvious to the participants of our events that contractual proformas have been always remaining untouched during our training courses. The essence of the training course provides for analysis of relevant case studies in the framework of Interlegal long-term practice in commercial and maritime arbitrations within Black Sea Region, as well as clarifies key principles of applying English contract law in grain trade.

Guided by the principles of sound law practice, Interlegal Law Firm has replaced the long-term title of the training course from “All About GAFTA/FOSFA Contracts” to “English Contract Law in Commodity Trading” in order to exclude the possibility of any correlation with GAFTA.

Hereby we once again inform the market that the training course English Contract Law in Commodity Trading is Interlegal intellectual property, it has practical and educational nature and is not treated as GAFTA official event.

With regards to such opportunity and high attention to our law firm, we once again invite market players to attend our training course and to gain exceptional knowledge - the subject of discussions even in London :-)

In addition, since GAFTA unprecedented actions have legal nature, Interlegal hereby reserves the right to apply to competent antitrust bodies for clarification, whether GAFTA may encourage its members (and non-members) to enter or not to enter into voluntary relations with other market players.