Real Estate » Property Online, Property Investment, Property Seminar

HOUSTON, Dec 11, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — McDermott Will & Emery is pleased to announce that Susan K. Knoll and Steven G. Spears have joined the Firm’s Houston office as partners in the Intellectual Property, Media & Technology Department. They join the Firm’s highly ranked, global IP department with more than 200 lawyers practicing worldwide.

“The arrival of Susan and Steven is an important step in enhancing our Houston and national capabilities in one of our most strategic practice areas,” said Fay Morisseau, head of McDermott’s Houston office.

“The two will also further strengthen our patent-litigation focus within the Texas district courts.”

Shares of Russian companies have lost nearly three-quarters of their value in six months. The price of government bonds is down by almost a quarter. The ruble is sliding, losing 20% of its value against the U.S. dollar since August. The price of oil, Russia’s chief export, has fallen by 70% since the summer. But for a long time, there was one asset in Russia—real estate—that somehow seemed capable of defying gravity.

Even as property market bubbles burst all over the world, the value of Russian real estate just seemed to go up and up. According to Moscow real estate agency IRN, residential property prices in Moscow did not peak until mid-October, rising by some 50% from a year earlier. With apartments in central Moscow selling for $6,000 per square meter ($557 a square foot), the city regularly tops lists of the world’s most expensive cities. Elsewhere in Russia, too, property values have climbed dramatically over recent years.