Two years ago the Romanian anti-fraud and tax authorities took the Romanian business environment by surprise, by initiating a thematic tax audit campaign aimed at auditing the tax treatment of purchased gift vouchers, in terms of income tax and social security charges. A very sought after extra-salary employee benefit, companies bought and offered gift vouchers amounting to over RON 1 billion (approx. EUR 200 million) in 2018 alone.

[Updated on 8 July 2021] Further to the entry into force of EU Medical Devices Regulation 2017/745 on May 26 2021, the Romanian Government issued an Emergency Ordinance setting forth the institutional framework for ensuring the MDR’s direct application (“GEO no. 46/2021”) and announced that the Ministry of Health will issue the secondary legislation in the following months.

After a valuable and information-rich day of panel discussions on important business development and law firm management topics, participants reconvened that evening (and were joined by several dozen newcomers) at the first ever CEE Legal Matters Annual Banquet and Deal of the Year Awards Ceremony – a celebration of CEE’s legal markets and the lawyers who work within them. Awards were presented for 17 qualifying markets in CEE – plus a surprise award for overall CEE Deal of the Year – with many of the lawyers playing key roles in nominated deals joining the celebration.

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.