French lawyer Bruno Leroy is the Founding Partner of the highly-regarded Leroy si Asociatii law firm in Bucharest. Leroy, who is a member of the Paris and Bucharest Bar Associations, has been working in Romania for almost twenty years, specializing in M&A and real estate transactions and on sensitive European law and competition matters.

On July 29, 2017, a new regulation regarding the reception of construction projects (the “New Regulation”) was enacted by means of Government Decision no. 343/2017. The New Regulation, which replaced the former procedure (which was regulated by Government Decision no. 273/1994) in its entirety, provides a number of notable changes impacting the real estate and construction industry in Romania.

On July 29, 2017, a new regulation regarding the reception of construction projects (the “New Regulation”) was enacted by means of Government Decision no. 343/2017. The New Regulation, which replaced the former procedure (which was regulated by Government Decision no. 273/1994) in its entirety, provides a number of notable changes impacting the real estate and construction industry in Romania.

A number of modifications to Romanian fiscal legislation implemented on January 1, 2016, have had significant effects on both taxpayers and competent authorities. The most important of these modifications target the transfer pricing policies and the VAT payment mechanism and have had a direct effect on fiscal litigations.

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. 

The Deal:  In July 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported that Romania’s Leroy si Asociatii law firm had advised France’s Lactalis group on its acquisition of Romania’s Covalact S.A. dairy producer from the SigmaBleyzer private equity firm, with Schoenherr advising SigmaBleyzer on the deal.

Recent years have seen a remarkable increase in the number of international arbitration disputes involving Romanian parties. In light of its flexibility, of the freedom parties have in constituting the arbitral tribunal and choosing the seat and language of the arbitration, and the perceived speedy and effortless enforceability of arbitral awards, international arbitration has become a widely-used dispute settlement mechanism. 

Traveling the region on legal business I sense a lot of buzz surrounding law firms in CEE. Headline transactions are numerous and deal-pipelines appear to be well-fueled. With the tailwind of news about solid economic growth in the European Union there are good chances that this trend will last. The future for law firms in the region looks brighter than ever. But there are also challenges ahead of us as the legal industry, in CEE as everywhere else, is headed for some turbulent times. 

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. 

MOTTO: No judge writes on a wholly clean slate.

In The Corner Office, we invite Senior and Managing Partners at law firms from across the region to share information about their careers, management styles, and strategies. For this issue, we asked them to describe their least favorite part of their jobs. 

In the present economical context, which often favors the migration of the employees from one company to another, the only tool left for employers seeking to prevent em-ployees from working for competitors after leaving their companies is to include non-competition clauses in employment contracts.

One of the astringent issues faced by intellectual property rights (IPRs) holders nowadays is enforcing their rights on the Internet, whether in conflicts deriving directly from the act of selling counterfeit products over the Internet or those involving domain name disputes. This latter concern is the focus of this report.

The 2017 CEE Legal Matters General Summit took place at the Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw on June 1-2, 2017, once again bringing together well over a hundred General Counsel and Heads of Legal from across Central and Eastern Europe for two full days (and one entertaining evening) of seminars, panel discussions, best practices review, and networking. This year’s event — the third annual, following the 2015 GC Summit in Budapest and the 2016 GC Summit in Istanbul — was the biggest and most successful yet.

On May 31 and June 1, 2017, CEE Legal Matters was proud to host a rare event: A gathering of those senior lawyers from each Central and Eastern European country identified by peers as being most influential, most important, most uniquely responsible for having created the country’s modern commercial legal market.

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.