In The Corner Office we ask Senior and Managing Partners across Central and Eastern Europe about their unique roles and responsibilities. The question this time around: “What is the one skill, ability, or characteristic that fresh law school graduates in your country most commonly lack?”

White & Case has advised Total Eren, a French renewable energy Independent Power Producer, on the acquisition of NovEnergia Holding Company, a Southern European Independent Power Producer. King Wood & Mallesons advised NovEnergia on the deal.

Swedish service provider TransLegal has announced its entrance into the Hungarian market with the launch of its World Law Dictionary project at the Lawtech Meetup: Right to Capture Language in Budapest on April 10, 2019.

Former ENKSZ Lead Attorney Emese Szitasi has joined DLA Piper as a senior associate.

Budapest lawyer Balazs Csuday, Bratislava lawyer Daniel Lipsic, and Prague lawyer Jan Prochazka are among the 25 European lawyers promoted to partner by Dentons as part of its 2019 cycle.

Former Mol Head of Group Compliance & Ethics Balazs Pista has joined Egis Pharmaceuticals in Budapest as the company's new Compliance Officer.

Marton Kocsis has joined the MOL Group in Budapest as its new Chief Compliance Counsel.

Baker McKenzie has advised MET Renewables AG on the establishment of a joint venture with Gazprom Neft-owned NIS, after helping MET acquire a 50% share in a Serbian wind farm project from an unidentified third party.

On 13 February 2019 the European Parliament and Council agreed on how the EU’s copyright rules should be updated aiming to strengthen the position of the journalists and artists vis-á-vis the large online platforms.  According to the agreement, the big online platforms should no longer be able to earn money by using journalists’ and artists’ content without paying them. Crucially, start-ups and smaller online platforms (under 10 million global turnover or not more than 5 million unique monthly visitors) will be subject to less strict obligations than well-known large companies like Facebook or YouTube.

Oppenheim has advised Immofinanz on its sale of the Arpad Center office building in Budapest to asset and property management company ConvergenCE. Bird & Bird advised ConvergenCE on the deal.

Dentons’ Budapest office has advised Hungarian online consumer electronics retailer Extreme Digital and its shareholders in connection with Extreme Digital's merger with eMAG Hungary — a member of South Africa's Naspers Group. Allen & Overy and DLA Piper reportedly advised eMAG on the deal.

In principle, in the course of the land registry procedure, the position of an entry of record in the land registry, and the order of such records is determined by the filing date of the applications or requests. Under the Hungarian Land Registry Act, the order of the entries may be modified on the basis of an authentic instrument signed by all parties, a private document countersigned by an attorney or bar association legal counsel, or on the basis of a private document where the signatures of the parties are attested by a notary public.

In recent years, a principal aim of Hungary’s energy strategy has been to make the country self-sufficient in electric energy. In figures, this means reducing the import to 0% within ten years – as the country’s current dependency on import of approximately 30% is significantly above the EU average. The increasing price of gas and the decreasing price of electricity led to a decrease in the domestic production of natural gas, so the Hungarian energy policy had to turn to alternatives.

In the absence of an agreement between the EEA and the UK (no-deal Brexit), the UK becomes a „third country” as of 00.00 am CET on 30 March 2019. This means that the organisations should revise those of their processing activities, which imply transfer of personal data to the UK.

According to the announcement of the state secretary for tax matters issued in February 2019, the Hungarian Ministry of Finance is planning to introduce a new system that prevents multinational companies to avoid tax burdens in Hungary.

The Hungarian Government submitted a bill to the Hungarian Parliament in February 2019. The goal of the new legislation is to amend more than 80 acts in order to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). According to experts, these amendments could bring an easier and more uniform application of the data protection laws.

On 13 February 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a ruling in a Hungarian case concerning the application of the provisions on VAT. According to the VAT Directive, as a general rule, VAT is be payable by the person carrying out the taxable supply of goods or services. However, in specific cases the Member States may deviate from this provision and provide that the person liable for payment of VAT is the taxable person to whom the supplies are made.

Gide Poland, Wolf Theiss Hungary, Switzerland's Python law firm, and King & Spalding Germany have advised Steinhoff International Holdings on the sale of its European companies to the Cotta Group. The buyer was reportedly advised by SSW Solutions.