CMS Vienna Partner Nikolaus Weselik will take over as the head of the working group on construction contract law and construction procedural law of the Austrian Society of Construction Law and Construction Business Management.

Roxana Fratila, the Head of Real Estate and Construction at CMS Bucharest, has been promoted to Partner at the firm.

CMS has advised Real Assets Advisers on its structuring of the joint acquisition of 33% of Acciona Energía Internacional by AXA Real Asset and Acciona S.A.

CMS Warsaw has announced that it will be joined by five former Clifford Chance lawyers in August, including Slawomir Czerwinski and Mateusz Stepien, who will join as Partners, Jaroslaw Gajde, who will join as Counsel, Antoni Wandzilak, joining as Senior Associate, and Dominika Pietkun, joining as Associate. 

CMS has helped Bulgaria's Global Biome settle a multi-million euro renewable energy dispute with the Sustainable Energy Development Fund related to recent changes to Bulgarian legislation. The SEDF was advised by Bouzeva & Partners.

CMS has advised Amundi Real Estate on its acquisition of Nowogrodzka Square, a Class A office and retail building in Warsaw, from Polish property developer Yareal. Gide Loyrette Nouel advised Yareal.

CMS Kyiv has helped Expert Petroleum, an international company specialized in mature oil and gas field operations optimization, on negotiations with UkrGasVydobuvannya, Ukraine’s state-owned natural gas production company, on Ukraine's first full-scale Production Enhancement Contract.

Former Local Partners Piotr Ciolkowski, Lukasz Szatkowski, and Blazej Zagorski have joined CMS's equity partnership.

Under an Executive Order of the Russian President, special rules for foreign nationals to stay and work in Russia will apply from 15 March to 15 June 2020.

Federal Law No. 102-FZ dated 1 April 2020 (the “Law”) enacts a number of tax support measures applicable to Russian taxpayers, primarily those belonging to negatively affected sectors of the economy. The Law also delegates certain legislative powers relating to taxation to the Russian government.

In response to the proclamation of non-working days in Russia from 4 to 30 April, many employers subject to the President’s Executive Order* dated 2 April 2020 (the “Executive Order”) have asked if they can provide their employees with “leave” during this period.

Six CEE-based lawyers — Agnieszka Skorupinska, Jakub Podkowa, and Jakub Wieczorek in Warsaw, Natalia Kushniruk in Kyiv, Roxana Fratila in Bucharest, and Artashes Oganov in Moscow — are among the 41 worldwide that CMS has promoted to the firm's partnership as part of its 2020 round.

In the current situation, many Russian companies, especially those with foreign investment, have found they are unable to hold their annual meetings (“Annual Meetings”) in full compliance with applicable laws. This is due to both the recent tightening of formal requirements for corporate resolutions and new restrictions on movement, meetings and business operations in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 11 April, the Moscow Mayor and the Governor of the Moscow Region introduced a digital passes regime.

As announced by the Russian President on 25 March 2020, the Russian Ministry of Finance has sent an official request to the Ministry of Finance of Cyprus to modify the existing double taxation treaty (DTT) between the two countries.

During his national address on 2 April, President Putin announced his decision to prolong the initial non-working days from 4 April to 30 April 2020 inclusive in order to fight against the spread of COVID-19. He signed a new Executive Order providing for this.

In The Corner Office feature of CEE Legal Matters we ask Managing Partners at leading law firms across Central and Eastern Europe about their unique roles and responsibilities. In light of current events, the question for this online occurrence of the feature is: "How are you managing your team working remotely during this challenging period?"

CMS, in cooperation with GFA Consulting Group, has helped the EBRD prepare a tendering process for the Serbian City of Pirot for the selection of a private partner in a PPP project titled “Reconstruction and Maintenance of the Public Lighting System in the City of Pirot.”