The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation is, according to the EU-hosted GDPR website, “the most important change in data privacy regulation in the past 20 years.” The Act, which was approved by the EU Parliament on April 14, 2016 and will become fully effective on May 25, 2018, was designed “to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens’ data privacy, and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy.”

In The Corner Office we ask Managing Partners at law firms across the region important questions about their unique roles and responsibilities. The question this time around: What was your favorite course in law school, and why?

One of the most controversial parts of corporate reorganization operations planning in Romania involves the use of share capital contributions or share swaps as a means to transfer company control – operations that fall into a legislative and administrative grey area. 

Romanian Government Ordinance no. 23/2017 regarding split VAT payment entered into force on October 1, with its provisions being optional until the end of 2017. On January 1, 2018, the Ordinance becomes mandatory. 

Law firm marketing and business development experts apply skills honed over many years and often in other industries. To explore their backgrounds, we asked them: What was the last job you had before joining a law firm, and why did you make the change?

Since Romania’s accession to the European Union in 2007, the European Commission has set up a Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) in order to monitor, among other strategic points, the progress of Romania’s fight against corruption.

On Thursday, November 30th, leading legal practitioners from across Central and Eastern Europe gathered in Prague to help CEE Legal Matters celebrate its fourth successful year as the leading chronicle of the legal industry in the region, participating in an expert Round Table conversation about the year just concluded and enjoying an evening of dinner, drinks, and bonhomie. 

Who knows lawyers better than other lawyers? In this issue’s Face-to-Face feature, Maravela & Asociatii Partners Gelu Maravela and Alina Popescu interview Mihaela Popescu, the former Head of Legal at Mercedes-Benz Financial Services.

Ranking services form a critical part of the law firm landscape in CEE as around the world, and law firm marketing and business development functions in the region spend many weeks or months each year preparing their submissions for those ranking services they believe are most widely read and influential. Still, not everybody is convinced the ranking services are as effective or valuable as they could be. Thus, for this issue, we asked the law firm marketing and BD experts around CEE: “What one change would you most like to see made to the law firm rankings to make them more useful/effective?” 

Debt recovery is one of the most challenging parts of day-to-day business, especially in an environment where debtors aim to hinder enforcement by fraudulently diminishing their estate.