Dinara Tanasheva 

Dinara serves as the Tax & Law Services Leader for Kazakhstan and Central Asia and is based in Almaty. She has almost 30 years of legal experience, which includesn the provision of tax controversy and other legal services to a wide range of clients.

Dinara graduated from the Kazakh State University (Degree with Honors), LL.M. from the University of London.

Dinara has been with EY Kazakhstan since 2000. She is a founder of the firm’s legal practice in Kazakhstan. She has extensive experience with various business initiatives on amending tax, civil and criminal legislation in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Dinara has successfully represented interests of large multinational and Kazakhstan companies before various state authorities and courts on tax and customs controversy.

During her time with the firm, she has significantly expanded the scope of legal work delivered by EY Kazakhstan — from supporting clients with company establishment and day to day operations to representing them in multimillion tax and customs disputes, as well as advising on M&A transactions and assisting with the conclusion of investment agreements with the governments.

• Extensive experience advising international and local companies on complex investment projects across Central Asia. 
• Led numerous legal due diligence projects assessing corporate, regulatory and licensing compliance for clients across multiple sectors. 
• Provided full legal support for the acquisition of a major building materials and coatings manufacturing group in Kazakhstan and Central Asia — a transaction recognized as the 2023 Deal of the Year by the Kazakhstan Growth Forum.
• Led the legal pre sale diagnostics for subsidiaries of one of Kazakhstan’s largest national companies as part of their transition to a competitive environment. 
• Supervised extensive compliance reviews across Central Asia, covering corporate licensing, currency regulation requirements, and advising on the elimination of identified regulatory risks. 
• Led a project providing comprehensive legal support for the market entry of the largest marketplace in Kazakhstan, including structuring of their local operations.
• Provided customs and tax advisory services on planning and structuring import and export operations, including drafting and reviewing foreign trade agreements for compliance with the legislation of Central Asian countries. 
• Successful experience in supporting and challenging the results of customs audits related to the inclusion of dividends in the customs value, including a successful court challenge at both first-instance and appellate levels regarding the inclusion of dividends in the customs value of imported goods from a related party, and the establishment of favorable legal practice on this matter. 
• Legal support to clients in providing a comprehensive legal overview of key restrictions (blockers) in the current legislation related to the development of cloud services in Central Asia.
• Dinara led projects related to analyzing antimonopoly regulation legislation in Central Asia from the perspective of protecting the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, including reviewing internal company policies to ensure compliance with applicable legislation.
• Dinara led a project providing legal support to an international pharmaceutical company on various intellectual property (IP)-related matters, including an analysis of Kazakhstan's legislation pertaining to IP protection within the pharmaceutical industry, incorporating insights from international experiences.
• Successfully defended the interests of a major consumer goods distributor in first instance and appellate courts in a dispute with the tax authorities, resulting in the cancellation of tax audit findings and savings of approximately USD 20 million.
• Successfully defended the interests of the world’s largest uranium mining company in court against the tax authorities, achieving savings of more than USD 16 million.
• Represented a Chinese energy construction company in acquiring a 75% participatory interest in a joint venture for the construction of wind energy installations in Kazakhstan.
• Successfully developed a legal and regulatory framework for a new digital technologies regulatory zone by conducting legislative analysis, identifying regulatory constraints and barriers, and preparing recommendations aimed at creating a favorable regime to enhance its investment attractiveness.

• Tax Controversy & Tax Litigation
• General Commercial & Corporate Law
• Regulatory & Compliance
• Legal Due Diligence
• Pre sale Diagnostics / Restructuring Support
• Dispute Resolution (Administrative Proceedings)

• Consumer goods and services
• Energy
• Financial services
• Insurance
• Investment management
• Multinational Corporations across Industries 
• State owned Enterprises (SOEs) / National Companies

• LLM, Kazakh State University named after Al-Farabi, 1994-1999
• LLM, University of London, United Kingdom

• Vice Chairperson, British Chamber of Commerce in Kazakhstan
• Advisory council to the Executive Teams of EUROBAK
• Chairman of Digital working group EUROBAK
• Lead on Cloud First Policy stream within Digital Working Group of The Foreign Investors’ Council (FIC)

• Kazakhstan Bar Association