Walless of Lithuania, Derling Primus of Estonia, and Primus Derling of Latvia have signed an agreement to form a pan-Baltic firm operating under the Walless brand.

TGS Baltic has established a pro bono partnership with the Kazickas Family Foundation, an international non-profit organization that supports education, social welfare, technology, culture, and medicine projects in the United States of America, Lithuania, and Africa.

Valentas Mitrauskas has been promoted to Partner at Motieka & Audzevicius.

Sorainen is representing 15min, a news website in Lithuania, in an appeal against a warning issued by Lithuania's State Consumer Rights Protection Authority commission.

On September 2, 2020, CEE Legal Matters reported that Motieka & Audzevicius had advised Turing College as the recipient of a EUR 1.2 million investment from Startup Wise Guys and the Motieka Investment Fund. CEEIHM spoke with Co-founder & CBDO of Turing College, Benas Sidlauskas, to learn more about the deal.

Sorainen’s Lithuanian office has advised the state-owned Ignitis Group on its initial public offering and admission to the Vilnius and London stock exchanges. Walless and Dentons advised bookrunners Bank of America, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Swedbank, and UBS on the offering. Linklaters and Ashurst also reportedly advised the Ignitis Group.

Former ZRG Law Firm Partner Marius Rindinas has brought a team to SPC Legal in Vilnius.

Dispute Resolution specialist Zygimantas Pacevicius has moved from Sorainen to Cobalt in Lithuania.

As elsewhere in the EU, Walless Partner Gediminas Dominas says, “the thing that Lithuanian lawyers are still talking about is how the reality of an ongoing pandemic is affecting everyday activities.” According to him, “it has affected everything, really, but mostly litigation and disputes – do we go into courtrooms or do things online, and if so, how we confront witnesses, how we ensure confidentiality, witness identity and integrity if it’s all online?"

Watson Farley & Williams has advised the Froelich family on their sale of Froelich Internationale Transporte GmbH & Co. KG to Lithuania’s Transimeksa Group.

The Lithuanian office of Cobalt and Denmark's Accura law firm have advised INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund on its acquisition of a 48% stake in MBL from Accession Mezzanine Capital III and the Lauritsen family. The Horten, Gessel, and Norton Rose Fulbright law firms reportedly advised the sellers.

The Lithuanian office of Glimstedt has advised UAB CGP Management on the sale of four private medical service operators in Lithuania to Latvia's Repharm healthcare group. Cobalt advised Repharm on the deal.

Walless has helped Railsbank Group subsidiary UAB Payrnet obtain an electronic money institution license from the Bank of Lithuania.

Walless has advised E Energija on a green energy purchase deal with Eesti Energia.

Sorainen and Motieka & Audzevicius have advised Startup Wise Guys and the Motieka Investment Fund on a EUR 1.2 million investment in Lithuanian edu-tech start-up Turing College. Motieka & Audzevicius also advised Turing College on the deal.

Motieka & Audzevicius has helped Donatas Aleksandravicius, the owner of the Ds Byggeri construction company, file an indemnification claim against Denmark at the ICSID.

Ellex has advised Quaero European Infrastructure Fund II on the acquisition of 100% of the shares of Digitalas Ekonomikas Attistibas Centrs from Solo Investments SIA, Astondesmit Astoni SIA, Duo Investicijas SIA, and KFP SIA. Triniti advised the sellers on the transaction.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and various related restrictive measures have created an extraordinary human, business, and legal situation in Lithuania. The Energy sector (like all others) has become subject to various restrictions and challenges, including restrictions on the movement of workers, partner liquidity issues, reduced demand for energy resources, etc. As everywhere else in Europe, Lithuanian electricity market participants have faced a significant decrease in wholesale electricity market prices. Moreover, it is already clear that COVID-19 has negatively affected the international supply chain, as the energy market participants experience disruptions and delays in the performance of contracts and project delivery. In these extraordinary circumstances, industry players (including operating power plant operators, project developers, and so on) have a reasonable expectation that the government will take the effect of the ongoing international crisis into account if developers do not bid in time in auctions or miss their project deployment deadlines.