Cobalt has successfully represented the European Commission in a dispute with the Republic of Estonia in the Court of Justice of the European Union regarding the amount to be charged for surplus sugar stocks.

Fellner Wratzfeld & Partner has advised the banks of the Waagner-Biro group on the company's restructuring and sale to Grosso Holding Gesellschaft mbH.

Mrowiec Fialek & Partners has advised the private equity fund Innova Capital on the acquisition by portfolio company OCRK Sp. z o.o. of Nuss Sp. z o.o. Stemplewski Szczudlo & Partners advised the seller on the deal.

Ellex Raidla has assisted Luminor with the establishment of a European Medium Term Note program in the amount of EUR 3 billion.

Popovici Nitu Stoica & Asociatii has assisted RTC Proffice Experience, a subsidiary of Swedish investment fund Oresa Ventures, with its acquisition of the cleaning and hygiene products distribution business of Paper Plus SRL.

CDZ Legal Advisors has advised e-commerce company SaveCart on the sale of a minority stake in the company to Future Tech FIZ, a closed-end investment fund that is a subsidiary of mBank S.A. CMS reportedly advised Future Tech FIZ on the deal.

Wolf Thiess Vienna has advised Panoro Energy ASA on its USD 65 million acquisition of OMV’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Tunisia Upstream GmbH.

SPCG Law Firm has successfully represented Miejskie Przedsiebiorstwo Komunikacyjne S.A. before the Court of Appeal in Krakow in a dispute with the provider of Krakowiak trams concerning the payment of a contractual PLN 15 million penalty from the tram manufacturer due to a delay in vehicle delivery.

Cobalt has successfully represented AS Poohtech and Activity OU in a litigation before the Supreme Court.

Zamfirescu Racoti & Partners has promoted Monica Strimbei and Catalin Micu to Partner.

Schoenherr has established a new Healthcare & Life Sciences group, jointly led by Corporate/M&A Partner Florian Kusznier and Dispute Resolution Andreas Natterer.

Hungarian lawyer Peter Homoki has joined the TMT practice at Lakatos, Koves & Partners.

Milos Pandzic has been promoted to Partner at Doklestic Repic & Gajin.

Former NNDKP Managing Associate Lucian Vitelaru has joined Radu si Asociatii — the Romanian member of EY Law — as Senior Managing Associate and Head of Real Estate.

Former Senior Legal Counsel at DTEK Wind Power LLC Maryna Hritsyshyna has joined Sayenko Kharenko in Kyiv.

Bird & Bird lawyers Izabela Kowalczuk in Poland and Laszlo Nanyista in Hungary have been promoted to partner as part of the firm's global promotion round.

Ukranian lawyer Oleksii Reznikov has joined Asters as a partner focusing on alternative dispute resolution.

The former Doklestic & Partners in Serbia has promoted lawyers Marko Repic and Dragan Gajin to the firm's partnership and rebranded as Doklestic Repic & Gajin.

Once it is accepted that Regulation 2016/679 on data protection (hereafter referred to as the "Regulation" or "GDPR") is fully applicable not only to the various legal entities (including small companies with a rather reduced level of activity), but also in the case of individuals processing personal data, during their activity, the specific implications of the Regulation on healthcare activities can be raised.

Technology and innovation are key drivers of advancement in a variety of industries, and certainly in healthcare. The level of patient care can be improved considerably with the right mix of traditional and innovative treatments and solutions. Nevertheless, there are regulatory challenges to overcome.

The amendments provide new business opportunities to banks to enter into repo transactions and derivatives with Bulgarian pension funds.

Companies have until 1 February 2019 to register their beneficial owners in the Bulgarian Commercial Register and Register for Non-profit Legal Persons (the "Commercial Register"). This obligation comes as a result of the adoption of a new Law on the measures against money laundering in March this year (the "AML Law").

The finance ministers of the European Union Member States support the request of the Hungarian Government relating to the tax reduction and simplification for small enterprises. According to this decision, the limit for VAT exemption for small enterprises might be increased to HUF 12 million. This legislative amendment would affect more than 600,000 taxpayers. If the Hungarian Parliament adopts this change, this amount will be equal to the income limit of the taxpayers falling under the scope of the Act on the Fixed-Rate Tax of Low Tax-Bracket, which is also HUF 12 million. Due to this change, the companies with a revenue up to HUF 1 million per month could also apply for this type of tax liability.

I. Scope of the registration obligation under Turkish legislation

According to some sources from the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, a lifelong personal income tax exemption is planned to be applied to mothers with at least three children. With this tax cut, the Hungarian Government would intend to encourage families to have more children, and to increase the fertility rate in Hungary, which is one of the lowest in Europe. This measure could result in approximately HUF 100 billion (~EUR 285 million) loss of revenue for the Government budget, which is 5% of the total personal income tax revenue. On the other hand, it is difficult to estimate how this tax exemption will affect the fertility rate or the women re-entering the labour market.

Companies in financial difficulties are regularly faced with challenges in seeking fresh financing – an injection necessary for financial consolidation and to overcome financial difficulties. Such challenges become even greater when a company formally enters pre-bankruptcy or bankruptcy proceedings. In a large number of cases, the companies are in such difficult and irreversible circumstances that potential creditors are usually discouraged from providing new financing, which is sought by the companies unable to provide any indication of success. However, there are situations in which creditors may be willing to provide fresh capital despite the debtor’s difficult situation – most commonly, because they already have an outstanding exposure against the debtor. Existing creditors considering new financing may see an opportunity to exit the existing creditor-debtor relationship less “harmed.” In such cases, the main questions involve the position the creditors can obtain by granting fresh financing and whether the legislative framework regulating pre-bankruptcy proceedings is sufficiently sensitized to their specific position.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) consists of two distinct administrative entities – the Federation of BiH (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS) – and the special administrative unit Brcko District of BiH (BD). In accordance with the constitutional division of competences, factoring activities – a type of debtor finance in which a business sells its accounts receivable (i.e., invoices) to a third party (called a factor) at a discount  – fall under the competence of individual parts, resulting in several sets of legislation but two regulators: the Federal Banking Agency (FBA) in FBiH and the Banking Agency in Republika Srpska (BARS), with BD able to choose either of the two.