The Government of the Republic of Serbia passed the Decision on the level of minimum labour wage for the period January – December 2022 and it was published in the Official Gazette of RS no. 87/2021 of 10 September 2021, while it shall apply from 1 January 2022 (“the Decision”).

On 2 September 2021 Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced a 225 million euro fine for WhatsApp and ordered the company to amend its practices within three months. It is the largest fine ever from the DPC, and the second-highest under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly brought significant changes not only to the everyday life of citizens but also to the operations of business entities, i.e. to the way of establishing and conducting the work process.

With an interesting legislative pipeline and a full deck of elections announced for next April, Serbia finds itself in a place of opportunity right now, according to PR Legal Partner Milan Petrovic.

The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted a new Law on Consumer Protection (“Law”) on 09 September 2021. The main reason for adopting the amendments to the current law lies in providing a higher level of consumer protection and trying to apply it more actively, in relation to the Law from 2014 and its subsequent amendments from 2016 and 2018. The most prominent novelty concerns direct marketing by telephone, ie the introduction of the “do not call” register. The “do not call” register is a list of landline and mobile telephone numbers of consumers who do not want to receive calls and / or messages as part of the promotion, marketing and / or sale by telephone.

In general, the Serbian Agricultural Land Act ("ALA") envisages granting the use of agricultural land, free of charge, to state-owned subjects, or, in instances where particular plots have not been leased for three or more agricultural years, agricultural land may be tendered for to be used by registered agricultural holdings.

In the age of digital philosophy, when the electronic management of documents become more and more prominent in both private and public sectors, digitalization of invoices is rather a logical development than an innovative approach in the functioning of the supply chain. Harmonization of e-invoicing regulation in B2G sector has been in effect for seven years in the EU, while Serbia established an e-invoice system in 2019, prescribing mandatory registration of invoices issued in commercial transactions with the public sector on the central registry of invoices (CRF). The most recent novelty in the field happened with adopting the Electronic Invoicing Act and its by-laws when a comprehensive set of rules regulating e-invoicing came into effect.

When it comes to reporting obligation to the National Bank of Serbia (“NBS”), what first comes to mind is the reporting regulated by the Decision on reporting on foreign credit transactions (Official Gazette of RS no. 56/2013, 4/2015 and 42/2020), which is done through commercial banks of reporting obligors.

The Serbian Data Protection Law that was adopted in November 2018 to align Serbia’s data protection laws with the GDPR has now been in force for almost two years (its application commenced nine months after its date of adoption, in August 2019).

Regional periodical league tables ranking M&A activity through the lens of the law firms advising on the deals are often dominated by Baltic law firms, with the CEELM Index special issue of the CEE Legal Matters magazine reflecting the same trend. To better understand why that is so, we spoke with several Partners – from both Baltic firms and other CEE jurisdictions.

Previously Yugoslav (JUS), and now Serbian (SRPS) standards for tobacco and tobacco products, dating back from the sixties and eighties of the 20^th century, are no longer mandatory. Starting from 10 July 2021, manufacturers of tobacco and tobacco products, including cigarettes, are not obliged to place products in the market that meet the requirements established by these standards.

Technological progress has a magnificent impact on everyday business life, and one of the things made possible by it is creating the opportunity for employees to perform work outside their business premises. But although technological progress gave employers the means to operate their business through remote work, the rigidity in incorporating this work model in practice was shaken only after the COVID-19 pandemic struck, making the expansion of remote work models a result of practical necessity. The sudden spread of remote work in companies also brought concerns of legal nature, and questions like what are the best ways to regulate contracts, safety measures etc.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Water Management of the Republic of Serbia introduced the newest amendments of the Rulebook on Conditions and Procedure for Public Bidding for Lease/Use of State Owned Agricultural Land, which came into force on 24 June 2021.

On 4 June 2021, the European Commission adopted two implementing decisions (Decision no. 2021/914 and Decision no. 2021/915) which contain Standard Contractual Clauses for processing and transferring of personal data and are set in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) (“GDPR”) with the hope of bringing about a higher level of personal data protection.

When advising organisations how to comply their businesses with GDPR, i.e., with the Serbian Law on Personal Data Protection, many times we received answers that organisations apply “best information security practices”. What does this formulation mean?

Managed Entry Agreements consist of various forms of confidential arrangements between pharmaceutical companies and paying healthcare systems that aim to facilitate access to new technologies in public healthcare systems. MEAs make innovative and costly medicines or medical technologies affordable to patients by providing conditional access to a reimbursement system for a limited period and on balanced terms.

Annual reports make up a fundamental part of many regional CEE law firms’ marketing strategies, providing those firms with an annual opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise in a particular area, their geographic footprints, and their ownership and facility with the research and technological tools and manpower necessary for the production of such comprehensive projects.

The Law on Electronic Invoicing entered into force on 7 May 2021 (“Official Gazette of the RS“, no. 44/2021). It obliges public and business entities to use the system of electronic invoices for issuing, sending, receiving and storing electronic invoices. On July 9 2021, the government adopted a set of bylaws necessary to implement the law.