Noerr has advised K&H Bank on the financing of the Wing Groups’ acquisition of the "Siemens Offices" real estate complex in Budapest from Siemens. CMS advised Siemens on the acquisition itself, while DLA Piper reportedly advised Wing.

Noerr has advised Landesbank Hessen-Thuringen Girozentrale on the refinancing of Atrium European Real Estate's acquisition of the Wars Sawa & Junior shopping center in Warsaw. Allen & Overy advised AERE on the deal.

Binder Groesswang, Noerr, and Spain's Gomez-Acebo & Pombo have advised Japan's Daikin Group on the EUR 881 million acquisition of AHT Group from the Bridgepoint private equity group. The Frankfurt office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised the sellers on the deal.

Foreign sanctions are forcing international companies to carefully evaluate their contractual relationships with Russian counterparties. In this respect Russian competition law provides obstacles that may be difficult to over-come.

RTPR Allen & Overy has advised Ruukki Romania, a member of the Swedish group SSAB, in relation to the sale of its factory in Bolintin-Deal, Romania, to Finland's Peikko Group Corporation. Noerr advised the buyer on the deal.

Noerr has advised Work Service S.A. on the PLN 155.3 million sale of all its shares in Exact Systems’ companies in a management buy-out by Pawel Gos and Leslaw Walaszczyk, founders and managers of Exact Systems, supported by funds managed by CVI Dom Maklerski through Remango Investments. Crido Legal advised the managers and Gessel law advised CVI Dom Maklerski.

German lawyer Thomas Mundry has been living and working in Russia since 1994. He advises both Western and Russian clients on investment, financing, and other projects in the Russian Federation. His sphere of activity covers a wide range of industries, including automotive manufacturing and supply industry, oil and gas, chemicals, engineering, retail, food and consumer goods, the fashion industry, and IT.

Below we highlight key developments and challenges related to the new Russian law on syndicated facilities.

Former Kinstellar Counsel Akos Mates-Lanyi has joined Noerr’s Budapest practice as Head of M&A/Transactions.

The announcement that the retirement age in Russia for both men and women will increase – from 60 to 65 for men by 2028 and from 55 to 60 for women by 2028 – have led to quite an outcry, says Stefan Weber, Head of Noerr’s Moscow Office, including recent demonstrations by thousands of protesters across the country.

New Type of Industrial Parks

Starting from the mid-2000s, industrial parks (IPs) have developed rapidly in Russia. By 2018, there were 166 IPs located across 51 constituent parts of Russia.

The demand for residential real estate is currently experiencing an unprecedented boom in Slovakia. According to official market surveys, the average price of flats has already exceeded the levels recorded before the outbreak of the world financial crisis, and further price increases are expected due to lagging supply and readily available sources of cheap funding from domestic banks. Not surprisingly, these conditions have resulted in a significant increase in the indebtedness of private households, which are currently the highest in the CEE region.

Romanian authorities have been busy this year putting forward several pieces of legislation affecting the construction field, including, most importantly: (i) a draft of a new law on authorizing construction; (ii) a draft proposal for amending the current application norms for the existing Construction Law; and (iii) preliminary theses for a long-awaited Urban Planning and Construction Code. These proposals were all designed to further the ambitious aim of unifying all the regulations on town planning and construction.

A German-Polish team from Noerr has advised the Schwarz Group retail group on the takeover by its GreenCycle affiliate of the Tonsmeier group of companies in Germany.

Noerr has advised Germany's Messer group on its take-over of the Buse Gaz company, which provides delivery services for industrial gases in Romania. Buse Gaz reportedly was represented by CMS Romania.

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.”

Noerr, Ellex Raidla, Jeantet, and Bowman Gilfillan have advised Daimler AG on a USD 175 million investment in Estonian startup Taxify. Sorainen Estonia advised Taxify on the successfully concluded funding round that brought its valuation to the USD 1 billion mark.

Konrad Werner has joined the Noerr Warsaw office as Co-Head of the Banking and Finance practice with incumbent Partner Ludomir Biedecki.