CEE Legal Matters
In-depth coverage of the news and newsmakers that shape Europe's emerging markets
Clifford Chance and Dominkovic & Osrecak have advised Taaleri Energia and Encro on the EUR 126 million senior debt financing package for the construction of the Zadar wind farm in Croatia. CMS reportedly advised the lending consortium.
Did You Know that, according to the Activity Rankings function of the CEELMDirect website, CMS’s Marija Musec has contributed six Thought Leadership articles to CEE Legal Matters over the ten years of its existence – more than any other Croatian lawyer?
Contributed by CMS.
A combination of policy support for and decreasing investment costs in renewables, the nuclear energy revival, and major nearby discoveries of natural gas in the Black Sea leads to the unprecedented interest of investors in Bulgaria.
The requirement for an increase in the use of green energy will have a significant impact on the growth of e-mobility.
As early as November 2018, the Austrian government announced that it planned to develop a hydrogen strategy. But the Austrian energy sector had been left waiting ever since the formal kick-off in March 2019. In the meantime, the EU and several member states presented their hydrogen strategies. Finally, on June 2, 2022, the Austrian government revealed its own plan of action.
Clifford Chance has advised Hillwood Polska on the EUR 26.3 million financing for the construction of a logistics park in Zgierz provided by Bank Millennium. CMS advised the bank.
A lull in the markets and legislative activity, due to political and global concerns, is offset by high foreign finance confidence and high foreign investor interest in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with client-driven ESG projects a particularly bright spot, according to Attorney-at-Law Andrea Zubovic-Devedzic, a Partner of CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz.
Schoenherr has advised the KKCG Group and its portfolio company Aricoma Group International on the acquisition of Bulgarian software company Musala Soft and its subsidiaries. CMS reportedly advised the sellers.
Did You Know that, according to the Activity Rankings function of the CEELMDirect website, Kinstellar Partner Jan Juroska has worked on 37 reported deals since 2013 – far and away the most of any lawyer in the Czech Republic?
CMS has successfully advised Shell Energy Europe on obtaining a license for trading natural gas in Bulgaria.
Between sustainability-linked loans and, more recently, green bonds, the finance world has been one of the early adopters and promoters of the ESG movement. We spoke with CMS Partners Ana Radnev, Cristina Reichmann, Ihor Olekhov, and Rafal Zakrzewski to check in on the status of ESG in this crucial sector.
The importance of ESG in business has become clearer as the moral and ecological reasons are now obvious to everyone. In theory, all companies support the idea of doing business in a more sustainable and climate-friendly way. However, in practice, companies usually only do something when they have to. In Hungary, there isn’t any binding ESG supply chain act in place yet, which could wrongly lead to the conclusion that the topic is unimportant. Yet considerations about ESG in the supply chain are no longer nice-to-have but have become a must-have globally, and Hungary is no exception. There are various locally relevant reasons for which companies must start prioritizing the management of ESG risks in their supply chain.
The Slovak market is undergoing an ESG transformation. As in most CEE countries, ESG is not yet regulated by a specific law in the Slovak Republic. Nevertheless, the trend toward considering ESG issues has appreciably increased in the last two years.
Dorda has advised the DigitalBridge Group on its joint acquisition with Brookfield Infrastructure and its institutional partners of a 51% stake in GD Towers from Deutsche Telekom. E+H and Latham and Watkins advised the bidding consortium of GIP, KKR, and Stonepeak. Reportedly, Allen & Overy and Morgan Lewis also advised DigitalBridge, Freshfields and Weil, Gotshal & Manges advised Brookfield Infrastructure, while, on the sell side, Gleiss Lutz, Noerr, CMS, Schoenherr, Cuatrecasas, and Freshfields advised Deutsche Telekom on the deal.
CMS has advised Austria's Alpla on its acquisition of Polish pharmaceutical packaging producer Apon.
Greenberg Traurig and Baker McKenzie have advised Echo Investment on the sale of the MidPoint 71 office building in Wroclaw to the Trigea Real Estate Fund.
The development of road infrastructure is important for the Macedonian authorities. The Government of the Republic of North Macedonia (RoNM) analyzed and undertook different approaches for the realization of infrastructure projects in the past. During the last few years, the Assembly of the RoNM (Assembly) has adopted two laws that stipulated additional regimes for the realization of infrastructure projects.
CMS Sofia is a full-service law firm, the largest international law firm in Bulgaria and one of the largest providers of legal services in the local market as a whole. The breadth and depth of our practice means that our lawyers are specialised, with a level of specialisation that few of our competitors can match.
CMS Sofia is the Bulgarian branch of CMS, a top ten global legal and tax services provider with over 5000 lawyers in 43 countries and 78 offices across the world.
CMS entered the Bulgarian market as one of the first internationally active law firms in 2005 and is now among the most respected legal advisors in the country. We have 7 partners, 4 counsel and over 30 lawyers in our office in Sofia.
Our legal experts, who are rooted in Bulgaria’s local culture, can also draw on years of experience in foreign countries and are at home in several legal systems at once. We know the particularities of the local market just as well as the needs of our clients and combine both to achieve optimum solutions. Our lawyers are Bulgarian qualified and we also have English qualified experts – all of them regularly working on cross-border mandates.
In our work, we focus on M&A, Energy, Projects and Construction, Banking and Finance, Real Estate, Media, IP and IT law, Tax, Employment law, Competition, Procurement and any kind of Dispute resolution, including arbitration and mediation. What’s more, we also take care of the entire legal management of our clients’ projects.