Member Profiles

Hélène is a national of Trinidad and Tobago and English qualified lawyer of more than twenty-five years who has been practising in the BVI since 1990. She is the Founding Partner of SimonetteLewis a boutique law practice that serves as BVI legal advisers to private banks in Europe and Asia as well as to private wealth advisers and high net worth individuals onshore. Mrs Lewis’ practice includes advising on property, trust, probate and corporate matters involving BVI structures. With her Litigation Partner, she has also appeared in several high value trust and civil litigation matters in the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands and the OECS Court of Appeal. She has presented to several conferences on Trust, Compliance and Corporate issues and is a member of the organising committee of one of the trust industry’s most successful conferences – the STEP Caribbean Conference which she has chaired twice in her capacity as Chairman of the BVI Branch of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (“STEP”). After admission to the Bar at Gray’s Inn the former Hélène Anne Simonette returned to Trinidad where she was at various times, State Counsel in the Attorney General’s Chambers, Legal Advisor to the Ombudsman and to the Leader of the Opposition. After having been the Senior Crown Counsel and sometimes Acting Attorney General of the Turks and Caicos Islands, she joined a prominent BVI law firm but established her own practice (SimonetteLewis) in February 2007. Mrs Lewis has served as President of the B.V.I. Bar Association, of which she was previously Secretary for seven years and has also served as Vice President and Treasurer of the OECS Bar Association, a regional association of the Bar Associations of the nine countries which comprise the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. She has served as a member of the STEP Worldwide Council and Board of Directors and had the distinction of being elected in November 2012 to be Chairman of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. She was re-elected to the post in November 2013 and stood down in November 2014. She currently services as a Vice President of STEP Worldwide and ChairmanoftheBranchDevelopmentCommittee. Mrs.Lewisisalsoadmittedtopracticein St. Kitts & Nevis.

Education: 1978 - 1983English Language High School, Plovdiv 1984 - 1990Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Law Faculty, Master’s Degree in Law Specializations: Aug. 1990Practical training in Company Law, Veale Wasbrough Law Office, Bristol, United Kingdom April 1999Course in Media Law, Tucson, AZ, USA Professional career: 1991 - 1996"Tomov and Stanoev" Law Offices - Lawyer since 1997"Bazlyankov, Stanoev & Tashev" Law Offices, Senior Partner Specialist in the field of: Foreign and local investments, Company Law, Privatization, Court proceedings, Telecommunications and Media Law, Real Estates Languages: Russian English

Specialist Areas: Corporate, Private Equity, Commercial, Telecommunications and Dispute Resolution. Dimitar Dimov has experience in a range of Bulgarian corporate law work. He has focused primarily on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, international joint ventures, private equity and venture capital. His current clients are involved in the media and telecommunications, banking, real estate and energy sectors, as well as a variety of investment companies. Dimitar received his LL.M. from Sofia University in 2003 and also attended the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He is also a Bachelor of Applied Linguistics (English and Japanese) of Veliko Tarnovo University. Dimitar is a member of the Sofia Bar.

Petya Kolcheva is one of the founders of Law Firm Novel - Kolcheva, Koev and Partners and its Managing Partner. Her practice involves mostly power, water supply and sanitation, telecommunications, general and specific requirements and legal aspects of infrastructure in Bulgaria, including price regulation, investment plans, real estate infrastructure, business requirements and permits, concessions, public-private partnerships. Restructuring deals of several big Bulgarian companies. Petya regularly advises bank lenders, investment banks, hedge funds, asset purchasers, and other investors in diverse projects. She is an adviser of an electricity distribution company regarding their holding structure, commercial contracts and anti-trust matters. She also works with venture investment funds as manager of legal teams regarding legal analysis of companies, drafting, negotiating and closing agreements for various types of investment tools and mixture of all available techniques for investments and financing, including hostile acquisitions.  Investors and advised the winning bidder of the Sofia Water Supply and Sanitation concession granted by the Municipality of Sofia first on the participation in the concession procedure and further on various post-concession matters for more than ten years. Her rich practice includes also advice on several public-private partnership projects between Bulgarian municipalities and foreign investors for investments in golf courses and holiday villages. She has taken active part in drafting or advising the new bills in the energy and telecommunications sectors, she sat on public bodies as legal adviser of the energy distributions companies in relation to such new legislation. She was a consultant on the restructuring of the water and sanitation companies and industry in Bulgaria. Graduate of the Faculty of Law at Sofia University St. Kiment Ohridski. Member of Sofia Bar since 1990. Member of the International Bar Association. Fluent in English and Russian.

Carlton is the Managing Partner of the firm with more than fifteen years of outstanding practice. He studied Law and Economics and has many qualifications. Admitted to the Cameroon Bar Association in 1996, he advices local and international clients in all aspects of corporate transactions and corporate Law as well as venture capital investments. He also has extensive experience in Intellectual Property Law, Mining and Hydro-carbons, Civil Aviation and Labour and Trade Relations. He is currently advising Rodeo Resources and Grynberg Petroleum Company, United States based Corporations, on the Exploration, Exploitation, Development and Marketing of the on-shore Logbaba natural Gas/Condensate Field project in Cameroon. He has advised Ansette World Wide Aviation and G.E. Capital Aviation Ltd., with respect to five (5) Air-Craft Lease Transactions contracted with the Cameroon Airlines,(as at the time). Carlton has also handled other highly complex structured finance transactions. AKKUM, AKKUM & Associates LLP is licensed before the African Intellectual Property Organization,(OAPI),and represent clients world wide ,in all their IP related filings before its 17 member state Countries.The firm is a full-service IP firm and has a wide IP clientele Prior to joining AKKUM, AKKUM & Associates LLP, Carlton constituted one of the two (2) partners in the Nico Halle & Co Law Firm and was the Assistant Managing Partner for several years. Carlton has a well established practice and is proficient in both English and French.