Maros Pogany is the Head of Legal at KIA Motors in Slovakia – a position he has held for the past nine years. Before joining KIA in 2004, he spent over three and a half years as a litigator in private practice and one year as a lawyer with the Matador Automotive Group. He is a 1999 graduate of the Law Faculty at the Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Kosice, Slovakia, and in 2017 he obtained an MBA from the DTI University in Dubnica nad Vahom, Slovakia.

In February of this year CEE Legal Matters reported that Partner Octavian Popescu had left Musat & Asociatii to set up his own firm: Popescu & Asociatii. CEELM sat down with Popescu to learn more about his new firm and his plans for the future.

Joe Clinton is a Partner at Allen & Overy in Istanbul, where he advises sponsors, borrowers, and lenders on a range of transactions, including project development and financing as well as real estate, leveraged and structured financing transactions, and general lending, with particular emphasis in the Middle East and Eastern European energy and infrastructure sectors.

Hristina Burdasheva is the Chief Counsel Legal and Compliance of Mondelez International for South Central Europe and Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Mondelez Bugaria Holding. She is based in Bulgaria.

Joerg Menzer is a German citizen based in Bucharest, where he coordinates Noerr’s CEE practice for international clients. He specializes in M&A transactions and concentrates on structuring major foreign investments and business expansion projects in CEE.

The Deal:  In July 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that Reff & Associates had advised Dutch shipbuilding group Damen on its take-over of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd.’s participation in Romania’s Daewoo Mangalia shipyard. DSME was advised by CMS. The yard, which was renamed the Damen Shipyards Mangalia, is now operated as a joint venture with the Romanian Government, with Damen assuming operational control. We reached out to both firms for more information.

This year marks Maravela | Asociatii’s fifth anniversary. To mark the occasion, we sat down with Maravela | Asociatii Partner Alina Popescu to learn more about the challenges the firm has overcome in its first five years, its successes, and its plans for the future.

Adina Calfa-Dudoiu is Legal Director at Rosia Montana Gold Corporation S.A., the gold mining project of Canada’s Gabriel Resources in Romania. Before joining RMCG in February 2017, she spent three years as Legal Director of UPC Romania, and another ten in private practice with CMS.

At the end of 2018 long-time Allen & Overy Partner Hugh Owen announced that, after 23 years at A&O — 19 of which were spent in CEE — he was stepping away from that Magic Circle firm to start his own consulting firm, called Go2Law. A year later, we checked in on him.

Adam Mycyk, a Ukrainian-American from the United States, is a partner in Dentons’ Kyiv office, and he has nearly 25 years of experience advising both Ukrainian and international companies, banks, investment banks and a range of other financial institutions and investors.

The Deal: In September 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that Sayenko Kharenko had advised Mriya Agro Holding and Hogan Lovells had advised the company’s ad hoc committee of note-holders on the restructuring of its USD 1.1 billion debt, and that the two firms had advised the company on its subsequent sale of the company’s assets, including infrastructure facilities, machinery and land lease rights, to the Saudi Agricultural & Livestock Investment Company United Kingdom (SALIC). Dickson Minto and Redcliffe Partners advised SALIC on its acquisition.

Ivan Kravtsov is the Senior Legal Director of Carlsberg, Ukraine. He started his career as a lawyer at Russian Energy Company JSC in October 2003, and in 2005 he moved to Procter & Gamble. In 2009 he was named the Head of Legal of Shell Retail Ukraine, and seven years he moved to Carlsberg.

In summer 2017, after Sejdiu & Qerkini Partner Korab Sejdiu was elected to the Kosovo Parliament, he suspended his law license and left private practice. We checked in with Sejdiu to learn more about his new role and experience.

The Prague-based European Centre for Career Education focuses on providing students a practical and complimentary education, focusing on kinds of practical experience and inspiration they rarely receive in their university studies. After they complete the program, ECCE helps participants obtain useful internships with companies such as Siemens, Unicredit, Exxon Mobile, T-Mobile, and Lego, and with law firms including DLA Piper, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, and Dentons.

Andrew Kozlowski is Counsel (and former Managing Partner) at CMS in Warsaw, where he specializes in energy and project finance, corporate/M&A, privatizations, and international capital markets. He has been involved in numerous infrastructure projects in Poland and across CEE and various project finance transactions in the energy and transportation sectors, from motorways, railways, and waste, to energy utilities.

Romania’s Competition Council is one of the country’s most active and demanding regulatory authorities, with hundreds of sector inquiries and investigations conducted in two decades of activity and significant fines being levied against offenders each year. The powers of the RCC have increased in recent years, as a result of efforts to encourage and protect whistleblowers, new developments in forensic procedures, and cross-border cooperation and action. In addition, the European Commission’s March 22, 2017 proposal to empower national competition authorities is expected to increase the RCC’s reach and efficiency.

The particularly-challenging nature of CEE law firm marketing becomes especially relevant as we bid adieu to a good friend in Bulgaria, who, after more than four years doing law firm marketing and business development with several of Bulgaria’s leading law firms, is leaving the profession altogether. We asked her some final questions on her last day, honoring her request for anonymity in the process.

Maxim Nikitin is the Chief Legal Officer of Atol Group in Russia. He started his career in law in 1998 at Debevoise & Plimpton. In 2001 he moved in-house before returning to private practice in 2011. In 2013 he moved back in-house as Chief Legal Officer with Virgin Connect, before moving to Atol in March of this year.