EY Hungary has advised a Hong Kong based private investment fund partnering with Wigan Acquisitions as local co-investment partner on the acquisition of the K6 office building in downtown Budapest. The seller, a US-based real estate investment company, was represented by Szecsenyi & Partners.

CMS has advised logistics company PCC Intermodal S.A. on its delisting from the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the re-materialization of its shares.

Zivkovic Samardzic has advised Slovenia's Pivka Perutninarstvo d.d., on a direct conversion of debt owed to Pivka by its Serbian subsidiary, Pivka-S, into equity of Pivka-S, as well as on the buyout of shares owned by Milutin Nikic, the minority shareholder and director of Pivka-S.

Brandl & Talos has advised VMS Value Management on sponsoring its third private equity fund, which will focus on special situations, like portfolio companies in distress and insolvency, as well as turnaround cases, business succession, complex carve-out transactions, etc.

Sorainen Latvia has advised Estonian company Baltic Bioethanol on the construction of a production facility in the Bauska industrial park, where it will invest up to EUR 150 million.

Selih & Partners Slovenia has advised food retail chain Mercator on its sale of ten shopping centers in Slovenia to Supernova Invest GmbH. Wolf Theiss advised Supernova on the acquisition of the shopping centers, which offer around 100,000 square meters of rentable area.

Ellex Raidla has advised BaltCap, acting through its DenCap Investments holding company, on the acquisition of Estonian dental care provider Kaarli Hambapolikliinik OU from OU Magnum & Co, OU SILLEVER, and Patre Investeeringud OU. The sellers were advised by Triniti.

Avellum has advised FMO (the Dutch development bank) and Diligent Capital Partners on their joint acquisition of a 16% equity stake in Allseeds SA and on the successful application for Competition Authority approval.  Hugh Owen, acting through Go2Law, advised FMO/DCP on matters of English law. Allen & Overy advised Allseeds on the deal.

Dentons has advised Skanska on the EUR 48 million sale of Spark C to KGAL Investment Management GmbH & Co. KG, a German independent investment and asset manager. Greenberg Traurig advised the buyer.

Szabolcs Posta has joined the Vamosi-Nagy Ernst & Young Law Office as the head of its Real Estate legal team.

White & Case has announced that Nikolay Feoktistov in Moscow and Tomas Jine in Prague will be made Partner as part of the firm's global promotion round, which includes a total of 41 lawyers around the world. The promotions will become effective on January 1, 2019.

Mario Schiavon, former Partner at Austria's PHH Prochaska Havranek Rechtsanwalte law firm has joined the Vienna office of Taylor Wessing as Partner.

Mark Withey has been appointed Partner at Dentons in Russia.

Akol Law in Istanbul has announced that former White & Case lawyer Tugce Tatari has joined the firm as Partner and that Zeynep Yavuz has been promoted to Partner.

Former Kinstellar Partner Jitka Logesova has joined Wolf Theiss as Partner to head the firm’s newly established Corporate Investigations Practice in Prague, which will serve as a hub for the entire CEE/SEE region.

Primus Derling has promoted Senior Associate Arturas Gutauskas to Associate Partner.

Daniel Odor and Zoltan Novak have been promoted to Partner at Taylor Wessing’s Budapest office.

Corporate and Data Privacy lawyer Asli Yildiz has joined the DMA, a UK trade association for the one-to-one marketing industry that describes itself as "Europe’s largest marketing association," to head up its expanding legal division.

After Turkey’s recent change to executive presidency, the President has made some changes in the government system. Accordingly, instead of the previous two ministries that have been the Ministry of Customs and Trade and the Ministry of Economy, there will be only one Ministry of Trade. As a result, through the Presidential Decree on Presidential Organization No. 1 published on 10.07.2018, the Ministry of Trade (the “Ministry”) now has the authority to initiate dumping or subsidy examinations, upon complaint or, where necessary, ex officio. Although the General Directorate of Imports is now affiliated with the Ministry of Trade, the recent changes remain at a ministerial level and the Board of Evaluation of Unfair Competition in Imports (within the General Directorate of Imports) is yet responsible for resolving matters with respect to actions and measures to be taken with the aim of protecting an industry against damage caused by dumped and/or subsidized imports in case of unfair competition. During the third quarter of 2018, the Ministry has initiated a number of anti-circumvention investigations and announced its decisions upon concluding several of the ongoing expiry review investigations. As in the past, the Ministry has announced its decisions with the communiqués published on the Official Gazette.

Emergency Ordinance no. 88 / 02.10.2018 on amending and supplementing certain normative acts in the field of insolvency and other acts, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 840, starts with a number of reasons, circumstances and situations that the Romanian Government invokes to justify their action.

On October 2, 2018, the European Parliament approved the amendments to the Audiovisual Media Services Directive 2010/13/EU (AVMS Directive) and the Council’s approval is expected imminently. Twenty days after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, it shall enter into force, and the Member States will need to transpose it into their national legislation within 21 months, probably in mid 2020.

After Turkey’s recent change to executive presidency, the President has made some changes in the government system. Accordingly, instead of the previous two ministries that have been the Ministry of Customs and Trade and the Ministry of Economy, there will be only one Ministry of Trade. As a result, through the Presidential Decree on Presidential Organization No. 1 published on 10.07.2018, the Ministry of Trade (the “Ministry”) now has the authority to initiate dumping or subsidy examinations, upon complaint or, where necessary, ex officio. Although the General Directorate of Imports is now affiliated with the Ministry of Trade, the recent changes remain at a ministerial level and the Board of Evaluation of Unfair Competition in Imports (within the General Directorate of Imports) is yet responsible for resolving matters with respect to actions and measures to be taken with the aim of protecting an industry against damage caused by dumped and/or subsidized imports in case of unfair competition. During the third quarter of 2018, the Ministry has initiated a number of anti-circumvention investigations and announced its decisions upon concluding several of the ongoing expiry review investigations. As in the past, the Ministry has announced its decisions with the communiqués published on the Official Gazette.

If anyone needed a wakeup call as to how critical a functioning compliance system and culture is, look no further than the recent reports in the Austrian media about allegations of fraud launched against a surgeon working at one of Vienna's most renowned public-sector hospitals. Accusations surfaced in July that the surgeon had falsified operating room records: claiming to be in surgery at the respective hospital, while actually performing surgery in another, privately-held hospital.

At a time when in Romania's business environment there are more than 6,000 companies with a number of approximately 64,000 employees undergoing the insolvency observation period procedure, the Government considers it opportune to take urgent measures to amend the legislation in the field, with the aim of facilitating the recovery of the difficult economic situations that these companies face.

The Presidential Decree dated September 12, 2018, on the Amendment of Decree No. 32 on the Protection of the Value of the Turkish Lira (“New Decree”), introduced significant restrictions on the use of foreign currencies in certain agreements between Turkish residents. Below, we explain the scope of the New Decree and discuss possible issues and problems that may arise in relation to the implementation of the New Decree. We also assess the potential effects of the Communiqué (2018/32-51) on the Amendment of the Communiqué on Decree No. 32 on the Protection of the Value of the Turkish Lira (2008/32-34) (“Communiqué”), which was published in the Official Gazette on October 6, 2018, and lists the exceptions to the restrictions imposed by the New Decree.

The Capital Markets Board (“CMB”) issued an announcement on September 27, 2018, on its website and addressed the much-disputed status of digital tokens and Initial Coin Offerings (“ICO”). In this announcement, the Capital Markets Board stated that it does not regulate or supervise ICOs, and also noted that it does not regulate or supervise most practices in which blockchain technologies are being used, such as cryptocurrency offerings and token offerings.

The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia has, on 8 June 2018, adopted the Amendments to the Companies Act (“the Amendments”).  As already observed, the provisions set out under the Amendments represent an answer to adjusting to the current business needs in Serbia.