“We received many requests to include games in the Domestic Software Registry,” said Natalya Yurkova from i-Legal about the main highlights for 2024

How did the year turn out for the law firm? What achievements would you like to highlight?

Although the final results are yet to be finalized, we can confidently say that the past year was eventful, diverse, and despite the challenges, brought many interesting cases and opportunities.

This year, we significantly expanded our expertise in the field of personal data protection, incorporating CIS countries, the European Union, and the United Kingdom, which enabled us to work on complex international projects dealing with data transfer across different jurisdictions.

Our team actively engaged in testing a special AI-based assistant for lawyers. This not only allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of modern technologies and their impact on the legal sphere but also enhanced our knowledge in cybersecurity, data protection, and digital platform regulation, which we consider extremely important for legal companies, especially in the IT sphere.

Finally, we launched in test mode another website dedicated to legal support for companies in the gaming industry.

I want to emphasize that the year was very rich in various changes in both Russian and international legislations, which we had to handle not only relying on our strong legal expertise but also by demonstrating every possible and impossible creativity for lawyers. I can confidently say that our team successfully managed this task. Among the most interesting changes for the gaming industry in Russian and international legislations are:

1. Tax reform. Changes in the Russian Tax Code, many of which take effect from January 1, 2025, drastically alter the tax order and affect almost all business layers, from small enterprises to large corporations. For our clients working under the simplified tax system (STS), these changes proved particularly significant, turning the "simplified" system into something like "complicated," as tax experts jokingly say among themselves.
2. Digitalization of the economy. New rules for regulating digital assets and platforms have impacted business operations in Russia and abroad, opening up new prospects but simultaneously creating additional challenges for businesses.
3. Personal data. New data protection requirements have strengthened control over personal data processing, necessitating companies to revise their internal policies and procedures. Moreover, the draft law on introducing turnover fines for personal data breaches, which we believe will be adopted shortly in one form or another, will also require businesses to pay increased attention to personal data and information security issues.
4. Other important changes. New rules for regulating bloggers with an audience of over 10,000, increased fines for sending unwanted advertising messages (spam), hikes in court and registration fees in Russia, sanction regulation, the adoption of the EU AI Act regulating the development and use of artificial intelligence technologies in the EU, are just a fraction of what affected legal work in 2024 and will continue to influence it in 2025.

What legal trends did you observe in 2024?

Here are some of the trends that can be highlighted:

1. Rights to AI-generated content. We increasingly encounter issues requiring resolution of the legality of using, authorship, and licensing of content created using AI.
2. Data protection issues. We frequently receive consultations on the legality of collecting and analyzing data for various purposes, such as improving game mechanics, optimizing monetization, etc., and we believe that the pool of questions on this topic will only grow.
3. Regulation of cryptocurrency mechanics. Currently, cryptocurrency is becoming an increasingly popular tool not only for the monetization of gaming products but also for attracting investments. Consequently, the trend towards more detailed legislative regulation in this area is gaining momentum, requiring regular monitoring of changes.
4. Legal support "without borders." The degree of cross-border legal norms is increasing, especially in the IT field, affecting data processing, tax, sanctions, and many other issues. Therefore, for large international gaming projects, having a team of professional lawyers with competencies across multiple fields and jurisdictions is particularly important.

What legal issues did gaming companies most frequently raise this year?

Among the most frequent inquiries from representatives of the gaming industry are the following topics:

1. Optimizing asset structure. In the face of sanctions and tax changes, international gaming companies strive for more thoughtful management of their assets, which requires a comprehensive legal approach.
2. Tax issues. This topic always remains relevant, but this year it has gained particular urgency due to the significant changes in Russian tax legislation: there were many inquiries about clarifying new rules regarding STS, VAT, personal income tax, and IT benefits. In addition to individual consultations, we prepared detailed guides and conducted webinars where we answered the most pressing questions.
3. Relocation. Basic questions of determining tax status when changing residency, for example, have been supplemented by more complex cases related to the conflict of legal norms of different jurisdictions, double taxation, citizenship, and even family law.
4. Registering games in the Domestic Software Registry. We continue to receive quite a few requests from gaming companies about registering games in the Domestic Software Registry. This year, we not only quickly adapted to changing requirements but ensured that all declared products of our clients were timely included in the Registry and received the corresponding benefits.

What legal trends do you expect to strengthen or emerge in 2025?

In 2025, we anticipate the development of several important trends:

1. Automation of legal processes. The economy is experiencing a significant influence from a new stage of technological progress associated with the development of generative networks, which will increasingly impact the work of lawyers and all other industries, especially the gaming industry and IT sector as a whole.
2. Growth of the lawyer's role as a business partner. More companies recognize the importance of having a lawyer capable not only of solving current tasks but also of acting as a strategic partner helping the business adapt to legislative changes and solve global challenges.
3. Mediation instead of litigation. Given the international situation and the trend of increasing litigation costs (including the recent rise in court fees in Russia), we foresee a trend towards popularizing the institution of mediation for pre-trial conflict resolution, which will not only reduce costs and speed up the dispute resolution process but, in some cases, will be the only way to resolve conflicts substantively.

What are the company's plans for the coming year?

In 2025, i-Legal plans to focus on developing competencies most in demand by our clients, including expanding the scope of services for intellectual property protection, drawing on both existing experience and expanding our expertise—international trademark cases are increasingly interesting to us; we are considering developing a series of GDPR products that we hope will be interesting and useful to our clients.

We plan even closer collaboration with game development representatives, including participating in specialized conferences and gaming industry events. We want to develop our "gaming" site as a tool for creating a unified information field on legal issues in this area.

Regulating artificial intelligence is an area of particular interest to us. And, of course, we plan to pay appropriate attention not only to our growing expertise in this field but also to the internal application of AI. We plan to automate internal routine processes, which, in our expectation, will increase team efficiency and improve the quality and speed of services provided to our clients. As mentioned earlier, we are actively working on a LegalTech project with one of our key partners and hope to see the first results of these efforts in the near future, which could bring significant changes not only for our company but for the legal industry as a whole.