Less diamonds and caviar in Moscow these days.

CMS Moscow has laid off 30 employees with 10 lawyers amongst the leavers. The office was made up via a merger of the local offices of CMS Cameron McKenna French and German alliance firms earlier this year but has since seen a number of redundancies.

Russia, which is heavily reliant on oil exports, has been hit by the sharp fall in energy prices. President Dmitry Medvedev predicted a 7.5% decline in GDP for 2009. Mr Medvedev said the decline was "very serious" and admitted the government had been surprised at how severely Russia had been hit by the crisis. The Moscow market has been particularly hard with Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie, White & Case and Denton Wilde Sapte all seeing reductions in headcount there.