“Things are, right now, Covid-driven again, really,” begins Partner Marc Lager, the head of the EU Competition Law and Global Trade practice in the Vienna office of Deloitte Legal. “The numbers have been going up a bit lately, as in other parts of Europe, and there have been talks of reintroducing some of the measures that were in place earlier in the year.”

Binder Groesswang, Schiff Hardin, and Hengeler Mueller have advised California-based medical devices and life science instruments manufacturer Paramit Corporation on the acquisition of 100% of shares in Austria's System Industrie Electronic GmbH and its German subsidiary, System Industrie Electronic Deutschland GmbH, from former majority shareholder System Industrie Holding AG (and its ultimate owner, the Filzmaier Private Foundation) and Aws Mittelstandsfonds, a former minority shareholder. Brandl & Talos advised the sellers on the transaction, which remains subject to regulatory clearance in both Austria and Germany.

Sixtus-Ferdinand Kraus, a member of CMS Vienna's Corporate Transactions and Corporate Litigation teams, has been appointed Professor of Civil Law at the Johannes Kepler University Linz.

Eisenberger & Herzog, Allen & Overy, and Shearman & Sterling have advised SAP SE on the acquisition of Emarsys, a Viennese cloud-based provider of omnichannel customer loyalty platforms. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised Emarsys.

Fellner Wratzfeld & Partner has advised Immobilien Holding on the sale of its shares in Arwag Holding to the Fund for Temporary Housing in Vienna.

CMS has advised green electricity provider eFriends on the sale of a 24% stake to RWA Raiffeisen Ware Austria.

BPV Huegel and Lenz & Staehelin have advised Raiffeisen Informatik on the sale of the remaining shares in SoftwareONE Holding in an accelerated book-building process. Citigroup, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan and UBS acted as joint bookrunners for the placement.

Binder Groesswang and Willkie Farr & Gallagher have advised private equity investment company Ardian on the sale of Gantner Electronic Austria Holding GmbH to Salto Systems. Wolf Theiss and Spanish law firm Garrigues advised Salto Systems on the transaction.

CMS has advised Bechtle AG on its acquisition of Dataformers GmbH.

Binder Groesswang has advised UBM Development on the EUR 50 million sale of its housing project in Vienna’s Nordbahnviertel district to the Buwog Group. The Grama Schwaighofer Vondrak law firm advised Buwog on the deal.

CMS Austria has advised Oesterreichische Nationalbank on the Felix Austria project, which seeks to modernize the processing of bulk payment transactions in Austria.

Binder Groesswang has advised Lafayette Mittelstand Capital on its acquisition of the elevator cable business from the Gebauer & Griller Group as part of a carve-out. DLA Piper advised Gebauer & Griller on the deal, which closed in early October.

Binder Groesswang, working alongside lead counsel Bird & Bird, has advised European investment fund Cube Infrastructure Fund II on the acquisition of a majority stake in Switzerland's Heliot Group.

CMS has advised Green Source GmbH and its Solar Partners subsidiary on the EUR 66 million financing provided by Kommunalkredit Austria for the construction of power plants in Hungary. Wolf Theiss advised Kommunalkredit Austria.

As of 11 October 2020 the EU FDI Screening Regulation is in force, ending the long wait for a Union framework to screen foreign direct investments. The umbrella spanned by the EU FDI Regulation is a further (crucial) building block in the EU's endeavors to tighten and coordinate the screening of foreign direct investments.

Eisenberger & Herzog, Milbank, and Rojs, Peljhan, Prelesnik & Partners have advised the Sartorius Group on its acquisition of BIA Separations and the merger of is into its subgroup Sartorius Stedim Biotech. Schoenherr advised the unidentified majority shareholder on the sale.

Schoenherr and Sweden's Delphi law firm have advised AddLife on its acquisition of all shares in the DACH Medical Group Holding AG. The unidentified sellers were advised by SCWP Schindhelm.

Cerha Hempel has advised OMV on the sale of its 51% stake in Gas Connect Austria GmbH to Verbund AG. Schoenherr advised Verbund on the EUR 271 million sale.