Constantly expanding and becoming increasingly diverse, complex, and risk-laden, the environmental, social, and governance landscape affects and challenges most businesses. New laws and regulations are having broad implications for organizations. According to EY Global Law Leader Cornelius Grossmann, “we are seeing a major pivot from a world in which sustainability was about messaging and voluntary commitments, to a world in which implementation is key and reputational risks are becoming more acute.” Nowadays, society no longer expects companies to simply do no harm, but also expects them to appropriately address environmental and social matters. In order for those matters to be properly addressed, it is crucial to focus on legal requirements for compliance in terms of ESG.

ESG has moved from conference halls to a daily function for many companies worldwide. In Estonia, stakeholder expectations for corporate ESG are still evolving, yet rising. Some companies are already incorporating ESG into their daily business, as they understand its value. Along with stakeholder expectations, regulatory scrutiny is also increasing, showing a dramatic increase in ESG reporting requirements worldwide.

Although the term ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) has been around for years, its full application is still quite daunting. Companies face the challenge of integrating ESG values into their strategy, operations, and decision-making processes in order to respond to the increasingly influential voice of stakeholders: citizens, consumers, NGOs, governments, and investors.

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.

Even though the Austrian green bond market has not been very active, issuers like Uniqa, Hypo Noe, Verbund, and the Republic of Austria have taken the first steps toward the new asset class. The main feature of such bonds is the intention and/or commitment to invest the proceeds of the issue in green projects. Most issuers initially established stand-alone green bond frameworks based on voluntarily applied market standards. An Austrian green bond standard has not yet been developed. Frameworks used in Austria are usually based on published guidelines, like the International Capital Market Association's (ICMA) Green Bond Principles. Issuers do consider the upcoming standards of the European Union, too – particularly, the EU Green Bond Standards (EUGBS) and the so-called EU Taxonomy.

Over the past few years, the phenomenon of ESG has grown in importance at a breathtaking speed. Originally an instrument in the financial markets allowing investors to better assess the risks in their investments, ESG has further evolved into a major legislative effort of the European Union.

In the past decade, the tech industry in Croatia has been growing at four times the rate of the entire Croatian economy, according to research by the Croatian Chamber of Economy. Despite all the obvious positivity of its high growth, the Croatian tech scene has been facing a challenge of its own: talent gaps.

On July 12, four leading lawyers from Croatia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania sat down for a virtual round table moderated by CEE Legal Matters Managing Editor Radu Cotarcea to discuss the latest in ESG developments with a focus on green financing, its regional and local drivers and roadblocks, its impact on non-financial reporting, and what it all means for the legal profession.

The Polish law firm of Traple Konarski Podrecki is in a position of running and maintaining a network of 15 firms, covering 19 jurisdictions, all working in unison for one of the biggest tech companies the world has ever seen – Google. To gain a deeper understanding of how this network of law firms functions and operates, we reached out to TKP Senior Partner Xawery Konarski and Partner Piotr Wasilewski.

With Baker McKenzie’s Budapest office celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, we spoke with Partners Zoltan Hegymegi-Barakonyi and Akos Fehervary to learn more about the firm’s track record in the country as well as what we can expect with the former passing on the Managing Partner role to the latter this July.

As a result of standard monitoring of public procurement procedures contracts, in July 2021, the Bulgarian government announced that in the past two-and-a-half years, roughly BGN 8.6 billion (EUR 4.4 billion) were spent on in-house awards of public procurement contracts in Bulgaria.

On February 15, 2022, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted draft Law No. 5090 on Amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine on the Regulation of Budgetary Relations in the Implementation of Contracts Concluded within the Framework of Public-Private Partnerships, Including Concession Contracts (Law 5090). The law is vital for the functioning of public-private partnerships (PPP) in the road and highway reconstruction sector since it enables public partners to provide guarantees of fulfillment of their long-term obligations under relevant PPP projects.

The Law on Public-Private Partnership and Concessions of the Republic of Serbia (Law) defines public-private partnership as a dynamic and developmental process of financing infrastructure projects, which represents a form of cooperation between government bodies and the private sector, intending to modernize the infrastructure and improve the provision of public services.

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.

Aware of the fact that an effective system of infrastructure creates the preconditions for the normal and undisturbed functioning of the wider social system, Montenegro has made significant efforts in recent years, both in terms of the normative definition of the sector and in finding optimal mechanisms for national infrastructure. In many European countries, a public-private partnership represents the optimal mechanism for national infrastructure, which has considerable advantages and is being ever more used.

The growth rate of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in Greece, which commenced almost four years ago and retained the same dynamics throughout the COVID-19 era despite the internationally unfavorable economic environment, remains undoubtedly impressive.

Public infrastructure projects in Austria and in particular PPPs are undergoing several changes. In the last few years, the focus of PPPs was on social infrastructure like schools, hospitals, and other clinics. Many of them have been structured as so-called Betreibermodelle, i.e., a form of build, finance, and operate models. However, the focus is clearly shifting towards infrastructure for digitalization and climate change.

While Polish public entities continue to express an ever-increasing interest in public-private partnerships (PPP) as a method of discharging public tasks, PPP activity has remained disappointingly slow in recent years. As can be seen from the 2009-2021 PPP Market Report by the Ministry of Regional Funds and Policies, just 24 procedures to select a private partner were launched in 2021, with PLN 627 million on the table, resulting in a paltry ten PPP contracts signed, worth PLN 172 million all told.