As a firm that specializes in asset recovery for victims of cybercrime when the assets or scammers are in Bulgaria, we’ve seen that, in the last few years, cyber crimes are increasing worldwide. The fraudsters use similar techniques to mislead their victims: through numerous hacking attacks, they send emails on behalf of and/or to the victims or persons related to them using fake email addresses very similar to the originals. The aim of the fraudsters is to trick the victims to transfer substantial amounts of money to the fraudster’s bank accounts in Bulgaria. Then, the fraudsters usually move the received sum to a bank account in another country or to a bank account of a related company in Bulgaria. These money transfers are in breach of Bulgarian and international AML Law.

The Fiscal Council of the Republic of Serbia published on 29 September 2022 the „Proposal of social and tax policy measures for reducing inequality and poverty risks in the Republic of Serbia“. One of the proposed measures of tax policy for reducing inequality is doubling the limit of non-taxable salary amount, from RSD 19,300 to RSD 40,000 and introduction of non-taxable census of RSD 20,000 per month, to be granted for each household member – dependent. In order to maintain the existing level of budgetary funds, should this proposed reform of individual income tax be adopted, i.e. in order to prevent decrease of budgetary funds due to the reform, it is necessary to increase the salary tax rate from 10% to 15% in parallel with increase of non-taxable census and introduction of non-taxable census for household members-dependents. 

The Icelandic data protection authority (Personuvernd) (“DPA”) recently held that there is a conflict of interest if a data protection officer in a company simultaneously acts as a representative, i.e., member of the same company’s management.

Business that considers environmental and social aspects alongside economic results and is managed in a transparent manner – this is the goal of the ESG framework, which has recently gained much attention. A survey carried out by the prestigious Czech research agency Ipsos for our law firm indicates that this is an issue that is currently being addressed by more than 75% of Czech companies and businesses. Although for the time being ESG obligations apply mainly to companies in the banking and financial sector, it is envisaged that these obligations will be extended to all large, and selected medium-sized, companies in the future. We have discovered that seemingly over half of the companies in the Czech Republic would be inclined to use the services of professionals from law firms or consultancies to implement successful ESG solutions in such a case.

Law no. 275/2022 to repeal Government Emergency Ordinance no. 37/2021 to amend and supplement Law no. 53/2003 - Labour Code has been published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 961 of 3 October 2022 (“Law 275/2022”).

Under many tax treaties mirrored after the OECD Model Treaty, the 183-day period implicates a significant threshold: individuals temporarily present in the treaty-party country (the Host Country) may be taxed by that country on income for personal services performed there if the individual resides in the Host Country for over 183 days in a given tax year. This is called the 183-Day Rule.

Following the tendency among EU states to improve labour legislation, through its 28 July 2022 law ("Law 243/2022"), the Moldovan Parliament passed certain amendments to the Labour Code. These were motivated by the need to align the existing legislation to current realities and the recommendations of the International Labour Organization.

In Turkish Law, contracts of transport are regulated in the fourth book of the Turkish Commercial Code No. 6012 ["TCC"] under the name "Transport Affairs". In this article, the period of delivery, which is one of the key aspects of transport contracts, and the presumption of loss, namely the legal consequence of non-compliance with this period, will be discussed briefly.

A draft amendment to the Czech Labour Code, to transpose European legislation into the Czech legal system, is currently being considered by Czech ministries. As the amendment introduces significant changes that will affect almost all employers, allow us to present you with a brief summary of at least the most important ones.

A real estate sales agreement is an agreement that is executed by and between the buyer and seller for the acquisition of real estate and is regulated under the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 (“Law No. 6098”). By executing the real estate sales agreement, the seller promises to transfer the real estate and the buyer promises to pay the sale price of the real estate. Pursuant to the Article 237 of Law No. 6098, real estate sales agreements are subject to the official form requirement. In order to fulfill this requirement, the real estate sales agreements used to be only executed before the land registrars since Article 26 of Land Registry Law No. 2644 (“Law No. 2644”) specifically authorizes land registrars to execute the real estate sales agreements.

On 2 September 2022, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) adopted a new slew of changes to the martial law restrictions introduced on 24 February 2022:

To comply with the highest European standards and safety conditions – Law on amendments to the Law on payment transactions (“Law”) has been adopted in the Parliament of Montenegro on 29 September 2022. Free movement of capital and full compliance with the Payment Service Directive 2 (“PSD2”) were main reasons for adopting the Law which shall ensure that the provisions of payment services in Montenegro are regulated in the same way as in the member states of the European Union.

In April 2022 deputies of the Slovak parliament, approved two long-awaited laws: Act No 200/2022 on zoning (‘the Zoning Act’); and Act No 201/2022 on construction (‘the Construction Act’). These two laws are about to replace the 1976 Building Act. Although they do not take effect until 1 April 2024, they bring such fundamental changes that need to be considered right away, in particular by the developers and real estate investment funds. The most significant of these changes are summarised below.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia has passed the Decision on the Amount of the Minimum Price of Work for the Period January – December 2023, which was published in the Official Gazette of RS no. 105/2022 dated September 14, 2022, and which shall be applied as of January 1, 2023 (“Decision”).

In its decision dated 18.08.2018 and numbered AT.40099, the European Union Commission [the "EU Commission"] fined Google with 4.34 billion Euros for abusing its dominant position through requiring smartphone makers to take a bundle of Google apps, preventing use of other versions of Android and concluding anti-competitive revenue share agreements. The General Court [the “Court”] dismissed Google’s appeal and upheld the Commission’s decision by slightly reducing the amount of fine to 4.125 billion EUR. This was recorded as the highest penalty ever imposed by European competition authorities.

The Whistleblowing Act in Romania (currently in the form of a revised bill, again waiting for a final vote in the Parliament) has been hotly debated over and over again during the past year: authorities, consultants, lawyers, employers and anti-fraud specialists have been going through the bill in detail and working out the challenges it will raise, both for public entities and private companies. 

This article aims to provide information regarding the ancillary restraints under Turkish Merger Control Regime and also analyses the Turkish Competition Board’s (“Board”) Vinmar/Arısan decision which provides insight into the Board’s approach to assessing the scope of ancillary restraints in merger cases and foreshadows potentially stricter scrutiny over such restrictions.

Thanks to its qualities - environmental friendliness and a wide range of applications, hydrogen occupies an increasingly central place as an energy carrier. Focus on its use, and in particular on the use of green hydrogen, is also placed at European Union (“EU”) level, where in a number of acts, it is considered an important factor for decarbonization, fulfillment of the global goals of the Paris Agreement and achievement of carbon neutrality until 2050. The reason is that both hydrogen and electricity can be generated from greenhouse gas neutral sources addressing climate change and air quality issues. To deploy green hydrogen and turn it into a viable solution to decarbonize, a lot of investments and a favorable regulatory framework are required.