The owner’s rights are guaranteed by the Constitution. However, a person can still be restricted or stripped of enjoying its title to the property if so provided by the statutory law passed by Verkhovna Rada. Mandatory transfer of property for the needs of defence or other public emergencies is called requisition and such transfer must be subject to prior and fair compensation, except “where extraordinary circumstances require otherwise”.

Law No. 69/2022 amending and supplementing Law No. 8/1996 on copyright and related rights (“Law No. 69/2022”) was published in the Official Journal of Romania, Part I No. 321 of 1 April 2022 and, with the exception of a few provisions which will become applicable 30 days or 6 months after publication, entered into force on 4 April 2022.

In a recently published decision (OGH 4 Ob 145/21h) the Austrian Supreme Court ruled that an auditor who neglects due diligence and therefore issues an incorrect audit opinion shall be liable for damages to a third party who relies on the correctness of such an audit opinion and suffers damages resulting from such reliance.

After a rather lengthy legislative process, Directive (EU) 2019/633 (the "UTP Directive") was implemented in Romania on 12 April 2022 by Law No. 81/2022 on unfair trade practices (UTPs) between companies within the agricultural and food supply chain (the "UTP Law"). It sets out a new set of rules applicable to food retailers and suppliers that have an annual turnover of around EUR 2m.

On 4 April 2022, the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Serbia published the Explanation on Annual Citizens’ Income Tax for 2021.

The Hungarian tax authority published its annual tax audit guidelines with the clear aim of supporting compliant taxpayers and take firm actions against intentional tax evasion by utilizing various data sources available in the process. E-commerce, real estate industry, data-based risk analysis remain key elements.

The Turkish Competition Board’s (the “Board”) decision on whether undertakings that are active in the welding sector violated Article 4 of the Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (“Law No. 4054”) by way of determining their prices together has been published.[1]

On March 30, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (the AMCU) adopted Recommendations on some issues related to submission and consideration of applications for permission for concerted actions, mergers of economic entities during martial law (Recommendations). 

In May of this year, the new Consumer Protection Act will enter into force, completely replacing the previous Act of the same name from 2014, which has undergone only two significant amendments. According to the Republic of Croatia Government, the main reason for adopting the new Consumer Protection Act is the implementation of Directive (EU) 2019/2161 from 27th November 2019. No less important, the reasoning for adopting the new Act also lies in the continuous development of digital tools, which is why it was necessary to include a digital segment of the conclusion of contracts in the legislation to a greater extent than was the case so far.

On 31 March 2022, the Romanian Ministry of Energy launched a call for projects under a new state aid scheme for supporting the development of new wind and solar power plants, with or without integrated power storage capacities (the "Support Scheme").

As war days go by, military conflict in Ukraine seems to escalade, jeopardizing the upcoming fate of the country on so many levels. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to envisage when the (post-war) normality will be reinstated, and when economics will follow their course once again. As a consequence, multiple companies have already announced their intention to cease activity not only from Russia, but also from Ukraine.

Directive (EU) 2019/633 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 concerning unfair business-to-consumer trading practices in the agricultural and food supply chain has recently been transposed into Romanian legislation by Law no. 81/2022, in force since 15 April 2022 ("Law no. 81 /2022").

Considering the military invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation and the scale of mass influx of displaced persons from Ukraine, on 7 March 2022 the Republic of Croatia officially introduced temporary protection for the displaced persons from Ukraine in accordance with the Act on International and Temporary Protection. The temporary protection is granted to persons displaced from Ukraine as of 24 February 2022 (or just before this date), more specifically, to Ukrainian nationals and their family members as well as to certain groups of stateless persons and certain groups of third country nationals.

The Government of Montenegro passed a Bill of the Law on Electronic Document („Bill“) which is now waiting to be passed by the Parliament of Montenegro. Among other things, the Covid-19 epidemic revealed the weaknesses of the public administration in terms of the digitalization of the public administration but also of the legal framework concerning the creation, usage and archiving of electronic documents both in the public administration as well as in private legal affairs, which makes the adoption of this Bill of great importance for the continuation of the digitalization process.

Sayenko Kharenko, April 20: On 24 February 2022, the life of every Ukrainian has changed forever. The activity of the Charity Fund “Breathe” has also been transformed. The organisation was initially established by Sayenko Kharenko’s partners and Ukrainian businessmen to support medical institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the start of the war, “Breathe” has been raising funds to help Ukrainian hospitals and civilians affected by the disaster. 

From 1 April 2022, substantial changes were made to the provisions of the government decree on the construction and construction-related profession exercising activities, i.e. designers, construction technical supervisors, responsible technical leaders and construction experts.

On March 21, 2022, Member States of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID”) approved a comprehensive set of amendments to the ICSID’s flagship rules for resolving disputes between foreign investors and their host States, after a five-year long process. This marks the fourth time the ICSID rules have been updated. Also, this is the most extensive review until now, as also explicitly acknowledged by the ICSID. The amendments will come into effect on July 1, 2022 and will apply to arbitrations commenced from that date onwards.

Recently, the European Parliament and Council adopted Directive (EU) no. 2021/2167 on credit servicers and credit purchasers relating to transfer and servicing of the non-performing loans (NPLs) issued by the banks.