Vladislav Talantsev is a corporate and transactional lawyer with over 27 years of experience spanning international law firms, a major Russian oil company, and, most recently, a fintech group building a regulated digital-asset platform. His career reflects a rare combination of top-tier private practice training and deep in-house leadership, giving him both the technical rigour of a Big Law-trained associate and the commercial judgement of a general counsel.

He began his career in 2001 at Russin & Vecchi, cutting his teeth on production-sharing-agreement work tied to the Sakhalin 1 and Sakhalin 2 projects, before moving to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in 2004, where he advised on landmark deals such as Total’s acquisition of a stake in Novatek and joint ventures for ConocoPhillips and Gaz de France. From 2005 to 2012, he was a Senior Associate at Dentons, advising a roster of international clients – including JCDecaux, RusHydro, Royal Dutch Shell, and several TNK-BP-related acquisitions – on M&A, financings, and cross-border disputes across the oil & gas, infrastructure, and industrial sectors.

In 2012, he moved in-house to PJSOC “Bashneft” as Head of Legal Support of M&A and International Projects, a role he held for seven years. There he led legal support for the company’s largest and most complex transactions: a USD 1 billion Eurobond issue, the USD 1 billion acquisition of Burneftegaz, the RUR 8.8 billion acquisition of the OPTAN petrol-station network, and multiple LMA-standard syndicated and pre-export finance facilities (PXF) worth hundreds of millions to over USD 750 million. He also directed legal work on Bashneft’s high-profile privatisation process, exploration and production projects in Iraq (Block 12) and Myanmar (Block EP-4), and international asset sales including aircraft transactions and a stake sale to BP. During this period he also completed a secondment to Rosneft, supporting acquisitions on the Indonesian and Equatorial Guinean continental shelves.

Since 2019, he has served as Head of Legal Function at VNX Group, a fintech and digital-asset business, where he built the legal and regulatory infrastructure for an asset-tokenisation platform from the ground up. His achievements include securing a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registration with Luxembourg’s CSSF, a TT Services Provider registration under Liechtenstein’s Blockchain Act, an E-Money Institution Licence from Liechtenstein’s FMA, and a Digital Assets Business licence from the Bermuda Monetary Authority – while