Freshfields boasts of its “international mobile lawyers” – but, in this part of the world, few are as international or mobile as Freshfields’ Partner Sebastian Lawson.

The Deal: On October 4, 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported that Dentons’ Bratislava office had advised CNIC Corporation Ltd., an investment company owned by the Chinese government, on its acquisition of Prologis Park Galanta-Gan in Slovakia – which Dentons described as “the largest logistics asset, both by area and investment volume, ever sold in the CEE region” – from Prologis, and that Kinstellar had advised Prologis on the deal.

On January 11, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that Dentons advised the London branch of UniCredit Bank AG and MUFG as coordinators on a EUR 750 million revolving credit facility provided by a group of 13 banks to MOL Plc, the Hungarian multinational oil and gas company. CMS advised MOL on the deal, which represented the largest financing deal in Hungary in 2017.

Helena Kokot is the Director of the Legal Affairs Department at the Zagreb International Airport. She joined the ZIA in 2014 after 12 years in the telecommunications sector with Croatian Telecom and T-Mobile Croatia. She got her law degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb in 1999.

Erika Papp Takes Over from Gabriella Ormai as Managing Partner at CMS Hungary

English lawyer Christopher Noblet has been based on Hogan Lovells' associated Budapest office since 2000 and leads its transactional and real estate team in Hungary. He studied law at King's Kollege London.

On May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation finally came into effect, imposing new requirements on organizations within the European Union and on those outside the EU that offer goods or services to EU data subjects or monitor their behavior. To learn more about the state of readiness in one such country, we spoke to Schoenherr attorney and Data Protection specialist Eva Bajakova in Prague.

On January 4, 2018 CEE Legal Matters reported that Schoenherr had advised BUWOG AG and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer had advised Vonovia SE on Vonovia’s voluntary public takeover bid of BUWOG. The takeover offer placed the enterprise value of BUWOG at around EUR 5.2 billion. We reached out to several of the individuals involved in the deal for information: Christian Herbst, Partner, Schoenherr and Thomas Zottl, Partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer 

Tim Pfister, Managing Partner at Knoetzl in Vienna, is an American lawyer with over 35 years of experience. In addition to his management responsibilities at Knoetzl, Pfister acts as counsel, advising clients and colleagues on New York law matters and regarding conflicts in international transactions, cross-border financings, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, corporate crisis management, and corporate strategic planning. He moved to Austria in 2013 and was a founder of Knoetzl in 2016.  

Patricia Gannon is a founder and Senior Partner at Karanovic & Nikolic, where she focuses primarily on the management, business development, strategy, and expansion of the firm. Gannon qualified as a Solicitor in Ireland and after a short period working at the European Commission in Brussels she moved to Serbia and founded the firm. She is a committed advocate of corporate philanthropy, and was amongst the founding members of the Serbian Charity Forum, an umbrella forum of leading foundations in the country.

Jovan Velkovski is the Head of Legal at JAT (Yugoslav Airlines) Tehnika, an Aircraft Maintenance Repair & Overhaul Center in Belgrade. Prior to joining the company, he worked as a Senior Legal Advisor at Privredna Banka Beograd, where he gained professional experience in bankruptcy cases.

Linda Szegvari is the Chief Legal Counsel of MET Hungary, an energy trading company that was established in 2007. The company is a subsidiary of the MET Group, which is present in 28 markets.

CMS Partner Ana Radnev has a unique profile. Born and educated in Romania, joined CMS in Bucharest, then moved first to the firm’s London office (during which time she became English law qualified), then to the firm’s office in Prague. Since 2013, when CMS opened its Istanbul office, Radnev has divided her time between the Czech Republic and Turkey.

Rita Ran Pang is a Chinese-qualified lawyer and a member of Kinstellar’s business development team, focussing on the Chinese market. Before joining Kinstellar in Prague, she worked for a Chinese law firm in Shanghai for five years, where she focused on foreign investment, cross-border transactions, merger & acquisitions, and outbound investment.

As the host of the world’s 17th largest economy and 19th largest population, Turkey’s energy needs are significant – and growing. The country’s energy demand is expected to grow about 5% each year for the immediate future, and the Turkish government has announced its plans to increase the share of renewable sources in the country’s total installed power to 30% by 2023. 

Andrzej Posniak started his career in law at CMS in 2003 as a corporate trainee and, step by step, become a qualified tax advisor, then a Partner and Head of the Tax Team in CMS Warsaw's Corporate Department. In addition, Andrzej also fulfills General Counsel and Risk Manager roles for the firm in Poland. CEE Legal Matters sat down with Andrzej to learn more about his unique role.

French lawyer Bruno Leroy is the Founding Partner of the highly-regarded Leroy si Asociatii law firm in Bucharest. Leroy, who is a member of the Paris and Bucharest Bar Associations, has been working in Romania for almost twenty years, specializing in M&A and real estate transactions and on sensitive European law and competition matters.

The Deal: On June 20, 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported that the Esin Attorney Partnership and Baker McKenzie had advised Turkven Private Equity, the Akarlilar Family, and Mavi Giyim Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., the Turkish jeans and jeans-wear company, on Mavi’s IPO, with White & Case advising underwriters Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Is Yatirim.