Law firm members of the SEE Legal Group, acting on behalf of Netlog Logistics, have completed a due diligence analysis of the Intereuropa group of companies, upon the announcement of a banking consortium that it is selling 72% share capital in Intereuropa d.d.

Kalo & Associates and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, both acting on behalf of the Republic of Albania, have persuaded an ICSID arbitral panel to dismiss a case brought by the Anglo-Adriatic Investment Fund, which was claiming about EUR 220 million for foreign investment expropriation.

Boyanov & Co., Kalo & Associates, and Hugh Owen of Go2Law have advised Albania Telecom Invest, a joint venture of entrepreneurs Spas Roussev and Elvin Guri, on its EUR 50 million acquisition of Telekom Albania from OTE (Deutsche Telekom). White & Case and Wolf Theiss advised the sellers on the deal, which remains subject to closing conditions, including the approval by the competent local authorities and financing, and is expected to be completed within the first half of 2019.

“Nothing really big is happening at the moment,” says Anisa Rrumbullaku, Partner at CR Partners in Tirana. "Not much has happened recently — it’s been pretty stable for the past three months.”

Arcliffe has assisted Yazaki on corporate and labor-related matters related to the company's activity in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Croatia. ODI Law supported Arcliffe in the Adria region countries.

BDK Advokati and Kirkland & Ellis have advised BC Partners on its agreement to acquire a majority stake in United Group B.V. from KKR, which retains a substantial minority stake. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, and the transaction is subject to relevant regulatory approvals.

October 30, 2018, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Belgrade

We are excited to announce that registration for the 2018 Balkan General Counsel Summit is now open. The event will take place in Belgrade’s Hyatt Regency Hotel on October 30, 2018.

“As part of Albania’s new judicial reform, in the beginning of 2018 a vetting law entered into force, which stipulates that about 800 judges and prosecutors will undergo a professional and ethical re-evaluation,” reports Alban Caushi, Managing Partner at CR Partners. “As a result, there is an impasse in the judiciary system: The Constitutional Court does not have a quorum to take over cases and the Supreme Court is paralyzed.”

The winners of the 2017 CEE Deal of the Year Awards were announced at the first ever CEE Legal Matters Deal of the Year Awards Banquet last night in Prague. The biggest smiles in the joyous and music-filled celebration of CEE lawyering, perhaps, were on the faces of Partners from Avellum and Sayenko Kharenko, which, along with White & Case and Latham & Watkins, won the award both for Ukrainian Deal of the Year and CEE Deal of the Year for their work on the 2017 Ukraine Eurobond Issue (a story initially reported by CEE Legal Matters on October 2, 2017).

“In Albania we have a hospitable climate for foreign investors, not just from a legal perspective, but from a business perspective as well, and we are trying to do the best to implement the laws as they are written,” reports Jonida Skendaj, Partner at Boga and Associates.

The western Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, and the Republic of Macedonia share the desire to join the European Union. Two of these countries — Albania and Macedonia — are particularly close to accession. we spoke to several lawyers to learn more about how accession could affect the business landscape and the work of lawyers in the two countries.

Albania's Hoxha, Memi & Hoxha law firm has joined the South East Legal Alliance.

On November 3, 2017, CEELM reported that CEE Attorneys Romania had helped logistics company EshopWedrop Group — part of Xpediator Plc — establish a relationship with franchisees in Albania and Cyprus. We spoke with Mircea Bandean, Managing Director at EshopWedrop, for more information. 

Women’s Day is behind us, but the subjects of gender equality and equal opportunity are of year-round concern. This, the first part of a special two-part CEE Legal Matters article on women in private practice in CEE, provides the numbers and percentages from leading law firms across CEE, as well as a more thorough snapshot of one representative market. Part II of the report, in the June issue, will pull back the curtain even more, providing feedback and perspectives from lawyers across the region.