With a total stock of over 800,000 square meters of office space and several large-scale office projects underway, Belgrade aims to further strengthen its position as a top choice for headquarters of investors operating in Serbia and SEE.

The Czech Republic has – due to its strategic location in the heart of Europe – always been an important transportation and business hub. It has one of the highest densities of railway networks in Europe, with almost 1,200 km of track for every 10,000 square kilometers in the country, and it is also an important road transportation hub.

The interest of foreign investors in acquiring real estate in Romania has grown significantly since the January 1, 2014 expiration of the country’s prohibition against EU citizens and businesses acquiring agricultural land. Land is available at competitive prices, compared with many other European countries, and other advantages include the facts that Romania holds an important share of the European crop land due to its grain production, has a favorable position within export routes, has high-quality soil, and has a climate suitable for a wide range of agricultural investments.

Contrary to all expectations, Hungary still does not require the use of building information electronic modelling (BIM) tools in tenders for public works contracts, despite the excitement in the construction industry about the possibility that the tools would be made mandatory as early as 2014.

Ukrainian commercial and residential real estate markets continue to be dynamic and are becoming more and more attractive to both local and foreign investors. The new Ukrainian Parliament, elected in summer 2019, has already passed some laws necessary for the development of the real estate sector and attracting investments to it. Below you will find an overview of the most significant changes in Ukrainian real estate legislation regarding buildings and construction in 2019.

The significance of medical devices is most certainly on the rise, considering not only its importance to patients, for whom medical devices represent life enhancing products, but also developments in innovation, economics, and in the regulatory and legal sphere. Issues such as data privacy in the field of medical devices were not noticeable until connectivity became a trend in medical devices and the GDPR was adopted. Similarly, the possibility of a cyber-attack on a medical device connected to the Internet became a possibility. Even though the question of product liability has always been present, recent decisions by the European Court of Justice provided new interpretations of existing legal terms and, importantly, introduced product batch liability. 

Investment funds represent a rather small part of the financial market in Croatia, but they are undeniably growing in presence and importance. Investment funds are recognized as a significant economic driver for business growth, joining the already well-established banks, insurance companies, and pension funds.

The main sources of Corporate Governance in the Republic of Serbia are the Law on Companies and the Law on Capital Market.

Ukraine is undergoing a period of structural reform throughout its financial and banking sectors that is unprecedented in its scale and complexity. The reform of the currency control regime culminated in the full cancellation of a 26-year old system and the introduction of a legislative road map for the gradual implementation of the free movement of capital. The reform gave a critical impetus to the development of the securities market and foreign investments, with Clearstream opening a direct securities account at the National Bank of Ukraine (the NBU) to provide easier access to hryvnia-denominated sovereign bonds. Ukrainian banks were authorized to grant short-term loans in local currency to foreign investors so they could invest in the bonds and hedge the FX risks of such transactions. The introduction of the IBAN standard is another example of the ongoing process of harmonizing the Ukrainian payment landscape.

Earlier this year the Estonian parliament enacted long-awaited dedicated covered bond legislation, finally allowing local banks to enter both regional and European-wide covered bond markets and to gain access to a reasonably priced and stable source of long-term funding for their key banking businesses (most importantly for funding the issuance of mortgage loans). Additionally, under the new legislation, local covered bond issuers able to meet prudential requirements under the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) will be able to benefit from certain forms of preferential treatment afforded to covered bonds. For the local banking sector that, at the moment, remains dominated by Scandinavian banking groups, the new legislation also creates a viable alternative to the parent funding.

Amazingly, the Lithuanian FinTech ecosystem report of 2018 revealed that there were 170 FinTech companies based in Lithuania – reflecting 45 percent growth over the previous year – with some 2,600 employees working in FinTech companies, more than 700 of which were newly-employed in 2018. The numbers are still growing this year.

Cash pooling is a staple of corporate treasurers as an efficient way to allocate liquidity and reduce financing costs within a group of companies. Despite its commercial importance, neither Austrian statutory law nor the Austrian Supreme Court has provided any guidance as to whether cash pooling is permissible under Austrian law – in particular whether it is compatible with Austria’s strict capital maintenance laws.

The organic development of the Hungarian insolvency laws was interrupted by the era of the socialist planned economy, which ended in 1990. The novel Insolvency Act of 1991 (IA) may have satisfactorily served the economy in the first years of the transition period, but due to the profound changes in the socio-economic environment in subsequent years, the statute has become obsolete. Successive governments over the past three decades have made multiple efforts to keep the IA up-to-date and to follow the numerous demands made by the various players of the market and interested legal professionals, but the more than one hundred (!) amendments have rendered the system opaque and relatively difficult to use.

The concept of financial restructuring was introduced in Turkey following the currency crisis of August 2018. Financial restructuring became the major item on the agenda of Turkish financial institutions, and regulators intervened immediately, working to create a useful legal framework for the process. The joint efforts of the Banking Regulatory and Supervisory Authority (the BRSA) and the Banks Association of Turkey (the BAT) resulted in the Framework Agreement. Nevertheless, restructurings commenced pursuant to the Framework Agreement are progressing very slowly, and in most cases have reached an impasse.

Bond financing has recently become quite popular in the Czech Republic and companies often finance their business needs by issuing corporate bonds instead of the more usual credit financing. Obviously, the popularity of corporate bonds is also associated with the greater willingness of investors to buy them. Bonds are perceived by the general public as a safe and conservative investment instrument. Nevertheless, recent market developments show that corporate bonds issued by private companies may not always be a safe investment, as evidenced, for example, by the insolvency of online fashion store Zoot, which funded its expansion by issuing bonds.

The main characteristics of the Macedonian banking market are its small size and the relatively large number of players. According to the latest reports of the National Bank of North Macedonia, out of fifteen active banks, five have significantly higher market shares than the rest. The combined market share of these five biggest banks is 74.4%, with a significant discrepancy between the bank that owns the largest amount of assets (a market share of 22.7%) and the one with the lowest (a market share of 0.5%).

Some might say that Serbia’s banking sector is blooming and steadily consolidating. Others may argue that actual consolidation is still far away. Either way, players on the local market are changing. This is clear now following the exit of Societe Genarale, BNP’s Findomestic, and two Greek banks, followed by the bold revamp of Hungary’s OTP and the strengthening of domestic investors such as AIK and Direktna Bank.

The wide usage of benchmark rates and their key role in the financial system requires that they be reliable and defiant to any manipulation. To ensure this, the EU undertook to reform the benchmark rate determination process and improve market confidence in them, resulting in the adoption of the EU Benchmarks Regulation (the BMR).