In The Debrief, our Practice Leaders across CEE share updates on recent and upcoming legislation, consider the impact of recent court decisions, showcase landmark projects, and keep our readers apprised of the latest developments impacting their respective practice areas.
This House – Implemented Legislation
Peterka & Partners Partner Adela Krbcova highlights recent amendments to the Czech Employment Act that took effect on January 1, 2025. “The start of the new year brought several changes to the Czech labor agenda with effect as of January 1, 2025,” she notes. To name a few, “the minimum gross salary increased to CZK 20,800 for standard full-time employment. The hourly minimum salary for 2025 is set at CZK 124.40,” Krbcova highlights. “The threshold for mandatory social security and health insurance contributions under agreements on work performance is CZK 11,500 and agreements on working activity and small-scale employment CZK 4,500.”
Additionally, “the lump-sum compensation for telework costs is CZK 4.80 per each commenced hour of telework,” Krbcova reports. “Rates of basic compensation for the use of road motor vehicles and meal allowances and on determining the average price of fuel for the purposes of providing travel allowances also changed.” She notes that “employee health benefits up to CZK 46,557 and other non-monetary benefits (such as leisure time benefits) up to CZK 23,278.50 are tax-exempt and not subject to social security and health insurance contributions in 2025. The costs are treated as tax-non-deductible costs by the employer.”
The Employment Act, Krbcova emphasizes, “strengthened the powers of labor inspectors when performing inspections by enabling them to make audio, visual, and audio-visual recordings without consent if the purpose of the inspection cannot be achieved otherwise. They also can, in certain cases, request information on an inspected employer from the tax administration.”
In Austria, “as of December 30, 2024, the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) is fully applicable,” Act Legal WMWP Partner Roman Hager underlines. “The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) now oversees the crypto market, aiming to enhance integrity, transparency, and reliability in this rapidly evolving sector.”
MiCAR, according to Hager, “introduces specific rules for asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and e-money tokens (EMTs), commonly known as stablecoins. Issuers of these tokens must adhere to strict supervisory requirements, including a sound capital base, redemption rights, and comprehensive white papers detailing the tokens’ features and associated risks. These measures are intended to ensure stability and robust consumer protection.” For other crypto-assets outside the ART and EMT categories, he adds that “MiCAR mandates the provision of clear and reliable white papers. These documents must be accessible to investors, offering transparent information about the assets’ technical foundations, economic rationale, risks, and the rights of participants. The FMA has underscored the necessity of ensuring that this information is fair, clear, and not misleading.”
The regulation “also intensifies actions against unauthorized providers and crypto-related fraud,” Hager notes. “Enhanced transparency and stricter enforcement measures aim to deter investment fraud, money laundering, and other dubious practices. Unauthorized entities operating without requisite approvals will face severe sanctions, supported by ongoing collaboration between Austrian and international supervisory authorities.”
“In tandem with MiCAR, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) comes into effect on January 17, 2025,” Hager says. “This regulation enhances IT security and operational resilience for financial market participants, including crypto-asset service providers. Under DORA, providers must implement advanced technical security measures, conduct regular stress tests, and maintain contingency plans to safeguard operations against cyber threats and system disruptions. Together, MiCAR and DORA aim to deliver not only greater transparency and confidence in the Austrian crypto market but also a technologically secure and resilient environment.”
Finally, Hager says that “the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has issued several warnings regarding the risks associated with crypto-assets. In December 2024, ESMA cautioned investors about the highly volatile nature of crypto-assets, noting that recent surges in value could be short-lived and emphasizing the potential for significant financial loss.”
For Greece, Drakopoulos Senior Associate Sofia Angelakou draws attention to the new law transposing EU standards on corporate sustainability reporting. “On December 12, 2024, Law 5164/2024 (Law 5164) entered into force,” Angelakou notes. “Specifically, the provisions of Law 4548/2018 relating to the annual management report have been amended to provide for the obligation of an in-scope entity to prepare, as part of its annual management report, a sustainability report, which shall include information necessary to understand its impacts on sustainability matters and information to understand how sustainability matters affect its development, performance, and position (the so-called ‘double materiality’ concept).”
Angelakou adds that “these provisions apply to all large undertakings as well as to small and medium-sized undertakings that are public-interest entities, to all undertakings that are parent undertakings of large groups, and to subsidiary undertakings and branches of undertakings which are governed by the laws of a third country, provided that they fall within the scope of article 11 of Law 5164, which added article 154B to Law 4548/2018.” Additionally, “failure to include the required sustainability-related information in the annual management report may lead to criminal sanctions for the members of the board of directors (imprisonment of up to three years or penalty ranging from EUR 5,000 to EUR 50,000) and for the auditors and audit firms or independent providers of assurance services that give false opinions (imprisonment of up to three years or penalty ranging from EUR 10,000 to EUR 100,000 or both). Administrative fines shall also be imposed in case of non-compliance.”
This House – Reached an Accord
Jalsovszky Partner Tamas Feher highlights significant changes to the costs of litigation in Hungary. “Two recent legal reforms in Hungary address litigation costs and court fees, significantly impacting civil and administrative proceedings,” Feher notes, adding that the reforms relate to attorney fees and court filing fees.
As for attorney fees, “around mid-2024, Hungary’s highest court, the Kuria, overhauled prevailing practice, by requiring the losing party in lawsuits to fully compensate the winning party’s attorney fees, with exceptions allowed only in extreme cases,” Feher says. “In response, the Ministry of Justice introduced a new regulation (No. 17/2024. (XII. 9.)), effective February 2025, aligning with the Kuria’s directive while also refining it.” Key points, Feher underlines, include that “attorney fees can be claimed either by filing the engagement agreement concluded with the lawyer or a percentage-based system tied to the lawsuit’s value,” and “courts can reduce fees only under specific, justified circumstances, such as unnecessary or disproportionate claims, with a maximum reduction of 50%, bar extreme cases.” He stresses that detailed reasoning is now required for court decisions on fee adjustments. “This reform discourages litigations initiated in bad faith and ensures the recovery of the actual costs – also in administrative cases against government authorities.”
The Hungarian Parliament has also adopted a new tiered system for “first instance court filing fees, replacing the flat 6% rate with a degressive scale that removes the previous fee cap of HUF 1.5 million,” Feher notes. Consequently, “lower-value cases will become cheaper to initiate. For example, a HUF 10 million lawsuit will cost HUF 489,500 instead of HUF 600,000.” On the other hand, “high-value cases will see substantial increases,” he notes, as “a HUF 100 million case will rise from HUF 1.5 million to over HUF 4 million.” Feher believes that “the reform is likely to raise the attractiveness of arbitration, and incentivizes thorough case preparation. Together, these changes ensure equitable cost recovery for litigants while modernizing court fee structures, potentially reshaping Hungary’s dispute resolution landscape.”
In the Works
The major update in Bulgaria’s energy sector, according to CMS Sofia Managing Partner Kostadin Sirleshtov, is Shell and Toshiba re-entering Bulgaria with two major contracts. “At the end of 2024, the Bulgarian government announced that Shell Exploration & Production will be awarded the exploration agreement for Block 1-26 Tervel,” he notes. “Block 1-26 Tervel has an area of over 4,000 square meters and is located south of the Khan Asparuh block, in which OMV already drilled three wells and continues with its exploration campaign. The block is also next to the Turkish blocks where the Turkish state is currently producing 4 million cubic meters per day from the Sakarya discovery and the Neptune deep discovery, for which OMV Petrom and Romgaz have made a final investment decision and are expected to have a total volume of around 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas.”
Additionally, at the beginning of 2025, “Toshiba International (Europe) Ltd. signed a long-awaited agreement with the Bulgarian National Electricity Company on the repair and rehabilitation agreement for Pumping Storage Hydro Power Plant (PSHPP) Chaira Unit 1,” Sirleshtov explains. “PSHPP Chaira is infrastructure of paramount importance, part of the major Belmeken-Sestrimo-Chaira Hydropower Cascade. PSHPP Chaira has a generating capacity of 864 megawatts and a pumping capacity of 788 megawatts. Units 1 and 2 have been in operation since 1995, and at that time, Chaira was the largest pumped-storage plant in Southeast Europe with the highest head in the world for a single-stage pump turbine. Units 3 and 4 came online in 1999. Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation is the manufacturer and supplier of the equipment for Chaira PSHPP and the owner of the technical and design documentation for the project. This necessitated the award of the repair work to the original manufacturer.”
Done Deals
For Serbia’s banking and finance sector, ZSP Advokati Partner Jelisaveta Stanisic draws attention to the increased number of deals concluded in 2024. As for the factors behind “companies trying to refinance their existing loans to lock in better rates,” as well as “new project financing deals moving forward quickly,” and “previously delayed deals coming back to life,” Stanisic draws attention to a decrease in interest rates. “While not every deal managed to close before the year ended, December’s busy period points to a much more active start for 2025,” she continues. “Many deals that started in late 2024 are likely to be completed in early 2025, especially if interest rates stay at these more attractive levels.” Additionally, the “end of 2024 also marked the emergence of new funding sources in Serbia – domestic corporate bonds,” Stanisic emphasizes. “This suggests that corporate treasurers would soon be adding new instruments to the debt mix.”
Regulators Weigh In
Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen Partner Anca Diaconu highlights that the beginning of 2025 in Romania was marked by a public consultation on foreign direct investment screening. “The Romanian Competition Council – which, notably, also has a role to play in foreign direct investment screening (i.e., Secretariat of the Commission for the Screening of Foreign Direct Investments) – opened the year by announcing a public consultation concerning the corporate restructuring of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD), currently subject to scrutiny under the FDI regime,” Diaconu explains. “As per the authority’s communique, the restructuring will lead to an indirect change in the (top) ownership structure of WBD’s Romanian subsidiary, via the introduction of a new shareholder.” Diaconu adds that the public consultation was unsurprising, “considering that certain investments in mass media are subject to such procedure pursuant to Government Emergency Ordinance no. 46/2022.” Still, “the move is yet another example of an internal restructuring undergoing screening from a national security perspective,” she notes. “Stakeholders are invited to submit their observations until the end of the month. It will be interesting to see whether concerns are raised and, if so, what they would look like, especially in light of the particularity of the investment i.e., restructuring.”
Greenberg Traurig Associate Malgorzata Czarnecka highlights the evolving landscape of RES financing in Poland. “At the close of December, the President of the Energy Regulatory Authority (ERA) announced the details and summary of the 2024 auctions for procurement of electricity from renewable sources,” she notes. “In Poland, the auction support system is designed to promote the development of renewable energy by providing financial incentives to producers.” Projects covered by the auction system “were and are eagerly financed by lenders, as they offer a moderately reliable income stream, achieving peak popularity from 2019 to 2021.”
“However, in recent years, we have observed a decline in the number of RES financing transactions involving projects based on the auction system, and figures released by ERA seem to support this trend,” Czarnecka highlights. “The President of the ERA reports that the auctions successfully concluded in 2024 cover in total 16 terawatt-hours of electricity with a projected value of PLN 5.1 billion, representing only 36% of the green energy intended for sale by the ERA in 2024. This outcome confirms the ongoing trend of investors opting for alternatives to the auction system, with power purchase agreements, including corporate PPAs, being the most favored choice. Given the low interest in the auction system in 2024, we anticipate that the majority of RES financing transactions in the Polish market this year will involve PPA-based projects.”
“Considering the growing demand for green lending, project finance transactions would likely follow this trend, encouraging lenders to focus on financing other renewable energy technologies,” Czarnecka says.
This article was originally published in Issue 11.12 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.
