The Bar Council has announced it is to send a delegation to Moscow and Kiev to raise its profile in the former Soviet republics.

The trip next week, which will be led by bar chairman Peter Lodder QC, is supported by the British embassies in Russia and Ukraine, and UK Trade and Investment.

During the visit, the Bar Council will be holding seminars in St Petersburg and Kiev, chaired by Lodder and aimed at Russian commercial lawyers and in-house counsel, as well as corporate entities.

The seminars are entitled ‘Litigating and arbitrating commercial disputes in England: practical issues for foreign lawyers’.

Lodder said: ‘We are looking forward to a successful trip, which will provide a further opportunity for practitioners to broaden and diversify the opportunities available to the bar.’

‘We have seen a noticeable growth in litigation conducted in the High Court, which has emanated from disputes in the CIS region. These cases come to London largely because of the reliability and efficiency of our courts and the bar, which makes these seminars extremely relevant to local lawyers,’ said Lodder.