CEE Legal Matters first interviewed Ingo Steinwender in 2014, near the end of his first year as Group Head of Legal at CA Immobilien Anlagen AG, one of the largest real estate companies in Austria. Six years later, we check in.

Ivan Males, from Croatia, is Senior Associate with DLA Piper in Vienna. He is a Finance, Projects & Restructuring practitioner with a focus on financing transactions and the infrastructure sector. In addition, he has gained particular knowledge on corporate and M&A cross-border transactions, notably in CEE and SEE markets.

Austria is one of the most desirable destinations for investors from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. It is frequently chosen as a country for investment or as a hub for doing business in Eastern and Southern Europe. In addition to Austria’s attractive economic and political environments, investors can benefit from Austria’s legal environment, in particular (a) the general accessibility of its market; (b) Austria’s flexible corporate law, which has a lot of similarities with CIS corporate law; (c) the country’s comfortable tax regime; and (d) benefits the country extends to startups. Below we briefly consider these benefits.

The move by the Big 4 firms – Deloitte, KPMG, EY, and PwC – to capitalize on their client lists and their multi-disciplinary capabilities by extending the ability of their legal arms to compete with traditional law firms is by now well-established. In Austria, their legal arms have begun competing aggressively for talent as well.

Everybody talks about the speed at which life moves in our globalized world. And the Austrian legal market isn’t evolving more slowly – so keep up the pace!

Wolf Theiss and Covington & Burling have advised MSD on the acquisition of 100% of Austrian biotech company Themis Bioscience. Brandl & Talos and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati advised the selling shareholders on the deal, which remains subject to regulatory approval, with McDermott Will & Emery and Herbst Kinsky advising Themis Bioscience. Financial details were not disclosed.

“The fairly stringent lockdown imposed by the Austrian Government in mid-March resulted in a relatively small number of infections,” says Paul Luiki, Partner at Fellner Wratzfeld & Partners in Vienna. “Apart from being able to get the infection under control, they also introduced a EUR 38 billion package to help the economy recover. Even though room for improvement always exists, given the little time the Government had to act, I think the support package on the whole has worked out just fine.”

Deloitte Legal has advised Magenta Telekom on structuring cooperation with the City of Vienna regarding broadband coverage. Lumsden and Partners advised the City of Vienna on the deal.

Schoenherr has advised Invester United Benefits on the sale of the Wohngarten residential construction project in Vienna to ZBI Zentral Boden Immobilien Gruppe. Wolf Theiss advised the buyers on the deal, which is expected to close by the end of June 2020.

BPV Huegel, working alongside Switzerland's Lenz & Staehelin law firm, has advised Raiffeisen Informatik on the sale of shares in SoftwareONE Holding AG via an over-night accelerated book-building process. Credit Suisse AG, J.P. Morgan Securities plc, UBS AG, and KKR Capital Markets Partners LLP acted as joint book-runners for the placement. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett advised KKR on the deal.

Dorda and Hogan Lovells have advised ARE Austrian Real Estate on a joint project with UBM Development involving the development of part of the Aspanggrunde in Vienna's 3rd district and an area in Munich. UBM was advised by Eisenberger & Herzog and GSK Stockmann.

On April 14, 2020, CEE Legal Matters reported that Dorda had advised Greiner AG on the takeover of Eurofoam GmbH from Recticel. We reached out to Maximilian Wellner, Head of Group Compliance & Legal at Greiner, to learn more about the takeover.

Binder Groesswang and Havel & Partners have advised BEXity and its holding company, Mutares SE & Co. KGaA, on the sale of Czech subsidiary European Contract Logistics in a management buy-out. The buyer, EC Logistics CEO Roman Goerojo, was advised by Jandura a Partneri.

Schoenherr advised Voith and Fellner Wratzfeld & Partner advised PCS on their acquisition of 59% of the shares of Traktionssysteme Austria GmbH. Cerha Hempel advised the selling shareholders on the deal, which remains subject to regulatory approval.

Wolf Theiss has assisted Swiss investment foundation AFIAA on the sale of its six-property office and retail property portfolio in Salzburg to German property developer RMI. The signing took place in March and the deal closed in late April.

PHH has helped GR Real acquire the historic Art Nouveau apartment building in Linz — the fifth such building it has acquired in the city.

Binder Groesswang and Freimuller Obereder Pilz have advised on Sapphire Ventures' participation in Adverity’s EUR 23 million Series C financing round. Adverity was advised by Freimuller Obereder Pilz.

Love them or hate them, conferences are a fundamental part of the successful commercial lawyer’s calendar. But time is precious. Those calendars are full. It’s vital for conference organizers to get them right, and critical for lawyers to choose wisely in determining which events to attend and which to skip.