Although I am a bit old to claim that my generation has two birthdays – a natural one and an Internet one – I believe, for that same reason, that we have the experience to assess progress in respect of ongoing digitalization trends.

Bulgaria, it seems, is in good shape. Fueled by a buoyant tech sector, the country’s economy is registering impressive growth, incomes are rising, and unemployment is down. Still, with corruption still a problem and the prospect of a global slowdown around the corner, few are willing to bet on the good times sticking around long. As always, in the Land of Roses, the thorns are not far away.

In the last five years significant changes have occurred in the Serbian business and political environment. This has been a time of dramatic change – with the general goal of transforming the position and the image of Serbia both regionally and globally, strongly affirming a pro-EU stance and making Serbia much more attractive for foreign investment. Obviously, both of these goals are interconnected because improving the image of a country brings more investments, and foreign investors generating profits in Serbia improves Serbia’s global image.

Representatives of more than sixty law firms from across Central and Eastern Europe and from as far away as the United States, United Kingdom, and China came together in Prague on June 6, 2018, for the first ever Dealer’s Choice international law firm conference and CEE Deal of the Year Awards Banquet.

After a valuable and information-rich day of panel discussions on important business development and law firm management topics, participants reconvened that evening (and were joined by several dozen newcomers) at the first ever CEE Legal Matters Annual Banquet and Deal of the Year Awards Ceremony – a celebration of CEE’s legal markets and the lawyers who work within them. Awards were presented for 17 qualifying markets in CEE – plus a surprise award for overall CEE Deal of the Year – with many of the lawyers playing key roles in nominated deals joining the celebration.

Many real estate experts and market players are upbeat about the positive trends on the Ukrainian real estate market, which is recovering after a significant downturn in 2013–2015. As the political and economic situation improves and the conflict in the south-west of the country stabilizes, foreign investors, attracted by market opportunities, are showing increasing interest in Ukraine.

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.

For various reasons, 2017 was a remarkable year for the electricity sector in Ukraine. Chief among them, no doubt, was the long-awaited adoption of the new law on the electricity market. Ukraine’s electricity market has been liberalized not only because of the country’s commitments under the EU Third Energy Package, but also as the benefits of competition became evident in the wholesale gas market. This liberalization started almost three years ago and is still on-going, though admittedly not without challenges.

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.

The last 18 months have seen significant interest and activity in the Hungarian start-up ecosystem.

Each year hundreds of billions of dollars are lost by companies due to cybercrimes committed by criminals. These attacks vary from sophisticated hacking to primitive fraud attempts. 

The Hungarian Parliament has recently adopted three new procedural laws: Act CXXX of 2016 on the Code of Civil Procedure (“CCP”), Act I of 2017 on the Code of Administrative Litigation (“CAL”), and Act CL of 2016 on Administrative Proceedings, which will all enter into effect on January 1, 2018. These new procedural laws come on the heels of the recodification of many substantive laws such as the Civil Code and the Criminal Code. This article aims to give a brief overview of these new procedural laws.

The Russian annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and subsequent military actions in Eastern Ukraine left Ukraine reeling. It took a while for the country to develop a strategy and institute its first arbitration and court actions against the Russian Federation. These first legal challenges are now bearing fruit, as several landmark decisions have recently been delivered by major international dispute resolution venues.

Leasing of employees – a situation in which employment agencies hire employees and act as their formal employers and then lease them to perform actual work for their client companies – has become a frequent phenomenon in Serbia the past few years. 

Kinstellar Budapest moderated a panel discussion as part of the Startup Safary Budapest 2017 startup exhibition, which included sharing insight on the start-up ecosystem and expectations for 2017 in Hungary. 

“Vienna is the gate to Eastern Europe” – Niki Lauda