We are pleased to announce that IPLC has obtained a licence from the Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA) to provide legal and consulting services in the Astana International Financial Centre.

On 17 August 2026, our branch in the AIFC — Branch of IPLC Limited Liability Partnership in the AIFC — was granted Licence No. AFSA-O-LA-2026-0014. We now officially operate in the AIFC as an Ancillary Service Provider and may provide clients with legal services, as well as regulatory consultancy, compliance consultancy, due diligence, company services and management and business consultancy.

For us, this is much more than obtaining another licence.

We have long seen the AIFC developing into a distinct and increasingly sought-after legal environment for Kazakhstani and international businesses. Corporate structures, investment projects, holding and project companies, cross-border transactions and regulated businesses increasingly require an understanding of Kazakhstan law, AIFC Law and the practical aspects of project implementation at the same time.

It is precisely at the intersection of these areas that we intend to develop our AIFC practice.

How we can help

Under our new licence, we will be able to support clients on legal and regulatory matters relating to establishing and operating businesses in the AIFC, corporate and investment structuring, corporate governance systems, contractual matters, complex investment projects and the protection of your rights within the AIFC legal environment.

We will also advise on AIFC regulatory requirements, including the determination of the applicable regulatory perimeter, licensing and registration requirements, preparation of regulatory documentation, ongoing obligations and interaction with the AIFC regulatory framework.

A separate area of our practice is general compliance consultancy: assistance with developing internal procedures, governance and control mechanisms, systems for managing conflicts of interest, complaints handling, recordkeeping and other elements of a corporate compliance framework.

The licence also allows us to provide due diligence services, Company Service Provider services, as well as management and business consultancy. In the latter area, we can help clients not only choose an appropriate legal structure, but also understand how it should work in practice: develop an operating model, a corporate governance and decision-making framework, reporting lines, approval and authority matrices, internal processes and a project implementation roadmap.

This is particularly important to us. A good structure should not remain a visually attractive diagram or a set of documents — it should be clear, manageable and genuinely work for the business.

From an idea and structure to a working project

Our new practice allows us to bring together in the AIFC the areas in which the IPLC team has worked in Kazakhstan for many years: corporate and investment structuring, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), due diligence, regulatory support, complex contractual relationships, corporate governance and support for investment projects.

We can become involved at an early stage, when a client has a business idea, an investment objective or a proposed structure, but does not yet have a clear answer as to how it should be implemented. Together with the client, we can identify an appropriate legal model, assess potential risks and regulatory requirements, structure ownership and governance, prepare corporate and contractual documentation, and establish the sequence of actions required for implementation.

In the AIFC context, this may include establishing and supporting companies and investment structures, corporate governance matters and relationships between shareholders and investors, structuring investments and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), establishing investment vehicles and fund structures, preparing transaction documentation and offering documentation, licensing and regulatory support, as well as supporting the further implementation of a project.

For us, however, legal support does not end with preparing documents.

We aim to look at each matter more broadly: to understand the client’s commercial objective, see the interaction between legal, regulatory and management decisions, identify potential issues in advance, and help build a structure that can work not only on the day a transaction closes or a company is registered, but afterwards as well.

That is why, alongside traditional legal services, we develop strategic legal support and legal risk management. In complex projects, we believe that good legal advice should not only answer the question of whether something “can or cannot be done”, but also help determine how the intended objective can be achieved properly, in a manageable manner and with an acceptable level of risk.

Almost two years of preparation for this step

Opening a practice in the AIFC was not a spontaneous decision for us.

IPLC partners have been Registered Legal Advisers in the AIFC for almost two years. During this time, we have systematically studied the AIFC legal and regulatory framework, undertaken specialised training, examined practical issues relating to the application of AIFC Law and used this experience in our work on corporate, investment and cross-border projects.

Obtaining the licence was the logical next step: this expertise is now combined with a fully licensed IPLC practice in the AIFC.

The same IPLC — in a new legal environment

It is important to us that expanding our practice does not change the approach for which our clients choose us.

We remain a boutique, partner-led law firm: our partners are directly involved in projects, understand the client’s business and bear professional responsibility for the result. Nurlan Turganbayev, Aituar Abusseitov and Dmitriy Filimonov are directly involved in the work of the Branch.

We have also embedded in the Branch practice the standards that we consider essential for a professional adviser: independence, good faith, acting in the client’s interests, professional competence and due care, confidentiality, management of conflicts of interest and compliance with applicable AIFC requirements. Our internal standards expressly require services to be delivered with appropriate professional competence, care, diligence, timeliness and professionalism.

We would be pleased to support your initiatives by combining legal expertise, an understanding of business and the practical implementation of complex projects.

Branch of IPLC Limited Liability Partnership in the AIFC

Ancillary Service Provider

www.aifc.iplc.kz