Sayenko Kharenko leads Ukrainian law firms in the FT Law Firm Index Europe 2026 and ranks among Europe’s top 25
Sayenko Kharenko has entered the top 25 of the FT Law Firm Index Europe 2026 – the highest placing of any Ukrainian law firm. The Financial Times announced the results at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards Europe 2026 in London.
Compiled by the Financial Times with legal intelligence firm RSGI, the index ranks 50 of Europe’s leading law firms on innovation, digital, people and social responsibility. This year, it drew 659 submissions from 141 law firms and 81 in-house teams, each verified by researchers through interviews with clients and market experts.
Two Sayenko Kharenko projects were commended in the accompanying report.
In Responsible Business, the FT recognised the firm’s work on holding police officers to account for torture. Rather than litigating against the state, the firm worked alongside the authorities to build the evidentiary case – a first in Ukrainian cases of this kind – and developed its own investigative methodology to do so. What happened in Kaharlyk became one of Ukraine’s most prominent cases of police violence: the Supreme Court upheld 11-year sentences for those responsible, and the case went on to shape amendments to Ukraine’s Criminal Code. Counsel Zlata Symonenko was commended individually for her role in it.
In Disputes and Crisis Management, the FT recognised Gulliver, one of the most complex distressed asset recoveries Ukraine has seen. Criminal seizure, state asset management, sanctions, preventive restructuring and parallel litigation all bore on the asset at the same time. The firm’s team resolved them through a single legal framework that recovered a major commercial property and now serves as a template for cases where several legal regimes collide.
The firm had earlier been shortlisted for Most Innovative Law Firm in Europe (headquartered outside the UK).
This recognition reflects work carried out in a country now in its fourth year of full-scale war, where legal precedent often has to be created from scratch.
Sayenko Kharenko is a Ukrainian full-service law firm advising domestic and international clients on complex commercial, regulatory and dispute matters. The firm has been involved in many of Ukraine’s most significant cross-border transactions, financings and disputes. Named “Best Law Firm in Ukraine” more than 40 times, it is consistently recognised by Chambers Global and Europe, Legal 500, IFLR1000, ITR World Tax, WTR 1000, Managing IP and IAM Patent 1000.
