On March 4, 2022 the Turkish Competition Authority (“Authority”) published the Communiqué No. 2022/2 on the Amendment of Communiqué No. 2010/4 on the Mergers and Acquisitions Subject to the Approval of the Competition Board (“Amendment Communiqué”). The Amendment Communiqué introduces certain new regulations concerning the Turkish merger control regime, which will fundamentally affect the notifiabiliy analysis of the transactions and the merger control notifications submitted to the Authority.

One of Ukraine’s legal responses to Russia’s full-scale aggression was a legislative initiative aimed to confiscate the property of the aggressor state. On 3 March, the Ukrainian Parliament put this initiative into practice by adopting the Law of Ukraine “On Basic Principles of Confiscation of Property Held in Ukraine by the Russian Federation and its Residents” (“Law”), and on 10 March, the Law was signed by the President.

Recently, the Serbian Parliament has adopted new Law on Innovation Activity. This Law is a part of the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development for the period from 2021 to 2025, whose basic motto is "The Power of Knowledge", which was adopted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia last year. Serbian digital community welcomed the adoption of the mentioned law, bearing in mind that the digitalization of the domestic economy has reached its peak in recent years, which was significantly contributed by the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to the above, the Serbian startup ecosystem was recognized as “the most promising one” according to the report of the "Start-up Genome" (an organization specialized in following and reporting about worldwide Start up ecosystems). As the report states, the reason for this is quality professional staff and favorable tax treatment.

The end of year 2021 marked the 10^th anniversary of the enactment of EU Regulation No. 1227/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (hereafter “REMIT” or “the Regulation”). On this occasion, the 5^th REMIT Forum was organized as a series of virtual events on 25, 26 and 28 October 2021 (“2021 REMIT Forum”). The introductory webinar to REMIT and the main plenary session were followed by special interest groups sessions on data, reporting and technology as well as on the 6^th Edition of ACER Guidance on the application of REMIT (“ACER Guidance”). Conclusions of the 2021 REMIT Forum will be revealed in different contexts throughout our own series of articles aimed at marking the occasion.

The Hungarian register of ultimate beneficial owners contains the data of the data providers falling under the scope of the act ruling the register of ultimate beneficial owners, for instance limited liability companies, public limited companies, associations, foundations or notary offices.

Crowdfunding is a fast-growing financing alternative, but in order to develop, it needs specific legislation to clarify how investors and interested companies can access this mechanism.

Katya and Mike are startup founders. Their small software-based company has grown tenfold in the last year and a half, primarily due to the innovative UX of their app and excellent yet cheap marketing campaign on social media. While Katya is the technical wizard with a degree in data sciences and design, Mike, the finance expert, holds the business end of their young venture. Still, as much as they worked hard bootstrapping and crowdfunding, they are painfully aware that, without further institutional investments, their future growth will be very limited and definitely below the potential of their solution.

With the amendment dated November 24, 2021 to the Bankruptcy and Enforcement Code No. 2004 [“BEC”] the sale of seized assets was to be conducted fully in an electronic environment. However, it was provided that the implementation of this provision would begin with the adoption of the relevant regulation.

For the existence of joint controllership, it is sufficient that both controllers determine purposes and means of processing in one or more segments of processing activity. Lack of control over data flow in other segments of processing activities does not release controllers from responsibility for the part/s where they determine purposes and means of processing jointly. This means that in one part of processing activity, controllers can act as joint, while in other parts they can act as independent controllers. The purposes and means of processing for controllers can be different. It is important that decisions of both controllers on purposes and means of processing are inextricably linked, meaning that processing of personal data in the particular case would not be possible without the said decisions of the controllers.

According to the Law on Archival Materials and Services (Official Gazette of RS no. 6/2020) (“the Law”), creators and holders of archival and documentary material shall be obliged, in addition to other obligations set out by the Law and by-laws passed thereunder, to submit to the competent archive a transcript of archive book no later than April 30 of the current year, for documentary material created in the previous year.

On 22 March 2022, Emergency Government Ordinance no. 27/2022 on the applicable measures for final customers on the electricity and natural gas market for the period from 1 April - 31 March 2023 was published in the Official Gazette and entered into force.

From 14 February 2022 European patents registered in Hungary became available in the EFPR system. According to the statement of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (“HIPO”), by joining to the EFPR system, 34,000 patents registered in Hungary became available and searchable on the site of the EFPR. It is important to have a common platform for the patent registry, as customers do not need to look up national sites and search for similar patents before requesting registration. The system itself is capable of informing the user about countries in which the European patent in question is not protected anymore.

On 13 March 2022 the Hungarian Parliament approved an amendment to the Corporate Income Tax Act that modified the regulation of investment tax incentives. Based on the amendment, the only requirement to claim the investment tax credit is that the investment should be an initial investment implemented by a small and medium-sized enterprise, or is realized by a large company in the Northern Hungary, Northern Great Plain, South Great Plain, South Transdanubia, Central Transdanubia or Western Transdanubia regions. Mainly the Pest County region will benefit from the amendment, as the tax credit can be claimed after the investment projects realized in the whole region.

In accordance with its latest announcement, Hungarian Government decided to temporarily decrease the excise duty imposed on fuel products as of 10 March 2022. Other governments in the region also introduced similar measures to control fuel prices and thus inflation; compliance with the EU rules, however, might be of secondary importance.

In a preliminary ruling following a request by the German Federal Court of Justice (case C-371/20), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) interpreted Point 11 of Annex I to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (Directive 2005/29/EC; UCP-Directive). This provision aims at preventing the use of editorial content in the media to promote a product where a business has paid for the promotion without making this clear in the content or through images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer (advertorial).

The rise in the popularity of NFTs also raises some questions regarding copyright law. Earlier last year, an independent NFT dealer calling itself the “Global Art Museum” tokenized digitized versions of the famous artworks from many collections such as Rembrandt's “Night Watch” that has been on display at the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands for years and other art from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Birmingham Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Asters, March 22, 2022: On 15 March 2022 the Parliament of Ukraine adopted the Law of Ukraine ''On Organization of Employment Relations during Martial Law'' (the ''Law''). The Law is not in force yet, as it awaits for the signature of the President and official publication. Nevertheless, as enactment of the Law appears to be a matter of couple days, therefore we suggest reviewing its main provisions based on the currently available text.

On March 16, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its order on Ukraine’s request for indication of provisional measures against Russia.