It is with great pleasure that we announce the 2019 CEE Deal of the Year Award winners – the most important, complicated, significant, and valuable deals across Central and Eastern Europe.

Bosnia & Herzegovina's Maric & Co. is reporting that it has been selected as a member of a preferred service provider panel for the INA Grupa companies, within the MOL Group program of external legal services.

A scandal shaking the pharmaceutical market of Bosnia and Herzegovina for several years now related to the unlawful delisting of foreign medicines manufacturers has moved to a silent but almost thriller-tense phase as the country awaits the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s final decision. The current countdown was preceded by a unique crisis in 2018, when two subsidiaries of foreign pharma giants that had been delisted decided to fight back, even as a number of smaller players liquidated their companies and withdrew from the market. 

Maric & Co has advised Shandong International and its Bosnian subsidiary SDHS-CSI BH Banja Luka on the Banja Luka-Prijedor-Novi Grad highway construction project.

“All activities in Bosnia & Herzegovina in the past two months have had to do with the state of emergency caused by the crisis, as they will for the foreseeable future,“ says Dino Aganovic, Head of Legal and Compliance at Heta Asset Resolution in Sarajevo. Nonetheless, he says, as dangerous as the virus is, he believes in being cautious about the steps taken to address it. “I must admit that I’m a bit of a skeptic when it comes to complete shutdowns,“ he says. “The global economy is sliding into a recession that is bound to impact poorer societies in terrible ways. We need to be thinking about the future as well, not just the present.“

Maric & Co has advised the European Investment Bank on a loan to Intesa Sanpaolo Bank in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Love them or hate them, conferences are a fundamental part of the successful commercial lawyer’s calendar. But time is precious. Those calendars are full. It’s vital for conference organizers to get them right, and critical for lawyers to choose wisely in determining which events to attend and which to skip.

In response to the coronavirus outbreak, most CEE/SEE countries have introduced provisions to close certain premises, while only some have banned the termination of leases in order to protect tenants who have lost revenues.

Part II of our Special Report on the Bosnian Legal Market before, during, and after the Bosnian War

The Republic of Srpska’s much-anticipated Law on Liquidation Procedure (the “Law”) entered into force in October 2019. The Law was adopted three years after the reform of the Republic of Srpska’s bankruptcy procedure and is part of ongoing reforms targeted at cutting costs and improving the overall efficiency of business management by providing new and simpler ways of conducting business.

Contributed by Karanovic & Partners.

Due to the complex constitutional structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina (composed as it is of two entities, Republika Srpska (RS) and Federation of BiH (FBiH), and the Brcko District), logistics, transportation, and shipping matters are regulated on the state level, entity level, and – in FBiH – cantonal administrative level.

Part I – Eppur si Muove

“Politically, we’re seeing a continuation of last year – even though the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina still has no government, at least the Bosnian Council of Ministers got formed,“ Says Olodar Prebanic, Partner at Prebanic & Jusufbasic-Goloman in Sarajevo. “This is a reflection of the situation in the entire country – the legislative pipeline is frozen, and there are no significant acts being passed on a Federal level."

“The Council of Ministers for Bosnia & Herzegovina was finally formed, after more than a year, following the elections that took place in October of 2018,“ says Partner Davorin Marinkovic of Banja Luka-based Dimitrijevic & Partners. “We can finally expect some processes to get unstuck, especially those related to infrastructure projects funded by international credits, such as the Corridor 5C motorway.“

In addition to their traditional role guiding companies through legal and regulatory waters and managing disputes, General Counsels are increasingly called upon to provide input on strategic matters. An expert panel at the second annual Balkan GC Summit considered how this change in the nature of the General Counsel role is manifesting itself in the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Baros, Bicakcic & Partners has successfully persuaded the High Commercial Court in Banja Luka to upheld the decision of the District Commercial Court obliging Addiko Bank to pay firm client Vucko d.o.o. Jahorina a total of over BAM 1 million in damages, interest, and court costs.

Serbia's Doklestic Repic & Gajin has announced that it has established a correspondent law office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the form of that city's Karabdic Law Office.