The Prague-based European Centre for Career Education focuses on providing students a practical and complimentary education, focusing on kinds of practical experience and inspiration they rarely receive in their university studies. After they complete the program, ECCE helps participants obtain useful internships with companies such as Siemens, Unicredit, Exxon Mobile, T-Mobile, and Lego, and with law firms including DLA Piper, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, and Dentons.

Andrew Kozlowski is Counsel (and former Managing Partner) at CMS in Warsaw, where he specializes in energy and project finance, corporate/M&A, privatizations, and international capital markets. He has been involved in numerous infrastructure projects in Poland and across CEE and various project finance transactions in the energy and transportation sectors, from motorways, railways, and waste, to energy utilities.

Romania’s Competition Council is one of the country’s most active and demanding regulatory authorities, with hundreds of sector inquiries and investigations conducted in two decades of activity and significant fines being levied against offenders each year. The powers of the RCC have increased in recent years, as a result of efforts to encourage and protect whistleblowers, new developments in forensic procedures, and cross-border cooperation and action. In addition, the European Commission’s March 22, 2017 proposal to empower national competition authorities is expected to increase the RCC’s reach and efficiency.

The particularly-challenging nature of CEE law firm marketing becomes especially relevant as we bid adieu to a good friend in Bulgaria, who, after more than four years doing law firm marketing and business development with several of Bulgaria’s leading law firms, is leaving the profession altogether. We asked her some final questions on her last day, honoring her request for anonymity in the process.

Maxim Nikitin is the Chief Legal Officer of Atol Group in Russia. He started his career in law in 1998 at Debevoise & Plimpton. In 2001 he moved in-house before returning to private practice in 2011. In 2013 he moved back in-house as Chief Legal Officer with Virgin Connect, before moving to Atol in March of this year.

German lawyer Thomas Mundry has been living and working in Russia since 1994. He advises both Western and Russian clients on investment, financing, and other projects in the Russian Federation. His sphere of activity covers a wide range of industries, including automotive manufacturing and supply industry, oil and gas, chemicals, engineering, retail, food and consumer goods, the fashion industry, and IT.

The Deal: In September 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported that the Moscow offices of Clifford Chance and CMS had advised on USD 850 million pre-export financing provided by 11 international banks for Uralkali, one of the world’s largest potash producers. On July 27, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that the two firms had advised on another Uralkali financing, this time involving a USD 825 million facility provided by 14 Russian and international banks.We reached out to both firms for more information about this most recent deal.

On March 9, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported on the expansion of the European act legal alliance with the addition of Hungary’s Ban Karika law firm and Fort Advocaten from the Netherlands. With the alliance now counting 13 offices in Europe – including five in CEE – CEE Legal Matters sat down with Sven Tischendorf of act legal Germany, AC Tischendorf Rechtsanwälte to learn more about the alliance’s plans.

Vera Kolesnik is Nestle’s Legal Director for Russia and Eurasia. Before joining Nestle in 2007 she worked for four years at Ernst & Young and for five years at the Institute of State and Law at the Russian Academy of Science.

Ondrej Plesmid is the Chief Legal Officer at King’s Casino in the Czech Republic. His career as a lawyer started in a small law office, and he subsequently worked for over three years in the Czech Ministry of Finance and then the Ministry of Regional Development. In 2017 he moved to the private sector and started to work at King’s Casino.

The Deal: On April 25, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that Clifford Chance had advised Czech Media Invest on its acquisition of Lagardere’s sale of its radio businesses in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania. Herbert Smith Freehills and Wolf Theiss advised Lagardere on the deal.

Miljan Malovic is the Head of the Business Legal Advisory Office of Banca Intesa Belgrade. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade in 2001, and joined Banca Intesa in 2006.

Freshfields boasts of its “international mobile lawyers” – but, in this part of the world, few are as international or mobile as Freshfields’ Partner Sebastian Lawson.

The Deal: On October 4, 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported that Dentons’ Bratislava office had advised CNIC Corporation Ltd., an investment company owned by the Chinese government, on its acquisition of Prologis Park Galanta-Gan in Slovakia – which Dentons described as “the largest logistics asset, both by area and investment volume, ever sold in the CEE region” – from Prologis, and that Kinstellar had advised Prologis on the deal.

On January 11, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that Dentons advised the London branch of UniCredit Bank AG and MUFG as coordinators on a EUR 750 million revolving credit facility provided by a group of 13 banks to MOL Plc, the Hungarian multinational oil and gas company. CMS advised MOL on the deal, which represented the largest financing deal in Hungary in 2017.

Helena Kokot is the Director of the Legal Affairs Department at the Zagreb International Airport. She joined the ZIA in 2014 after 12 years in the telecommunications sector with Croatian Telecom and T-Mobile Croatia. She got her law degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb in 1999.

Erika Papp Takes Over from Gabriella Ormai as Managing Partner at CMS Hungary

English lawyer Christopher Noblet has been based on Hogan Lovells' associated Budapest office since 2000 and leads its transactional and real estate team in Hungary. He studied law at King's Kollege London.