Court fees represent an important part of the costs in every legal proceeding. Matters related to court fees in the Republic of Serbia are currently regulated by the Law on Court Fees and the Fee Tariff contained within that law.

The passing of time makes claims unenforceable in front of courts. While in some countries, a simple notice letter interrupts the limitation period, in Hungary creditors who want to avoid the limitation of their claim must initiate a lawsuit. Is it always enough to start litigation to interrupt the limitation of claims in Hungary? The Hungarian Supreme Court addressed this question in a recent case.

The National Bank of Ukraine (“NBU”) recently allowed Ukrainian borrowers to transfer foreign currency (“FX”) funds abroad to fulfil their obligations under the following categories of loans from foreign lenders:

After a long period of preparations the Whistleblower Protection Act has been finally passed.

Below is a round-up of selected updates on developments in Europe of ESG regulations and policies. Please note that this list is not comprehensive and may not include all such developments that may be relevant to your business.

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) gradually continues to lift martial law limitations for cross-border borrowings.

In one of our previous texts we wrote about the recent decision of the Spanish personal data protection authority, by which it fined an employer as the controller of personal data for using the option of audio recording within the employees surveillance system, which data were subsequently used for termination of an employment contract.

Accountability is one of the key notions both in GDPR and the Serbian Data Protection Act.

On 22 March 2023, an amendment to the Transnational Provision of Services Act (Zakon o čezmejnem izvajanju storitev – ZČmIS-1, “Act on Cross-Border Services“) was adopted and partially came into force on 18 April 2023, with individual provisions becoming effective on 1 January 2024.

According to the legislation in force in Hungary, when entering into a sale or lease contract of a real property, the buyer or tenant must declare in the contract that he/she has received a document called energy performance certificate (“EPC”) which certifies the energy performance rating of the property and EPC’s unique identification number shall be included in the contract.

The German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz; "LkSG") is effective from 1 January 2023 for companies and branches based in Germany with more than 3,000 employees, with further extension to companies with more than 1,000 employees from 1 January 2024.

Although probation may be one of the most well-known legal institutes of the Labour Code and is a standard element of the employment agreements, the latest amendment of the Labour Code will make the parties pay more attention to their related statements.

On 22 June 2023, the Law of Ukraine on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Optimizing the Operations of the State Property Fund of Ukraine, Increasing the Effectiveness of State Property Management and Improving the Effectiveness of Sanctions Policy ("Law") became effective.

On April 20, 2023, the European Commission ("Commission") adopted a merger simplification package ("Package") aimed at simplifying the Commission's review of concentrations under the EU Merger Regulation. The core of the Package is the expansion of the categories of cases which can be treated under the Commission's simplified procedure. In addition, the Package aims to streamline the review of simplified and non-simplified cases by introducing new notification forms.

Last week, the Czech Competition Authority ("CCA") blocked an acquisition of part of První novinová společnost a.s. ("PNS") by Česká pošta, s.p. ("Czech Post"). While it is impossible to foresee the exact future of merger control enforcement in the Czech Republic, what is clear is that the CCA with this decision, whether intentionally or not, has sent a message to the market that it is ready to take the hardest line on a merger if it raises competition concerns. We summarize main details of the case and additional thoughts on its impact below.

From 1 July 2023, the interest income of natural persons will also be subject to a 13% social contribution tax. This means that - inter alia - interest on deposit accounts, together with personal income tax, will be subject to a total of 28% tax rate.

The Government of the Slovak Republic has introduced a draft law on the conversions of companies and cooperatives (the Draft Law) that implements EU Directive 2019/2121, amending Directive 2017/1132 with regard to cross-border conversions, mergers and divisions (the Directive).

With effect from 16 May 2023, Ukrainian borrowers are allowed to make payments from Ukraine abroad to repay and service certain
cross-border loans from foreign lenders. This applies to the loans that are: