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The economic sector of the Republic of Serbia, including the capital market, offers a telling reflection of the global market’s challenges and some regional specifics. Despite periods of uncertainty and stagnation, Serbia’s capital market maintains signs of vitality and potential for growth.

In a recent judgment, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) held that the claim "climate neutral" is ambiguous and often misleading unless the advertisement itself explains its specific meaning. This sets a trend for Austria, where courts have traditionally followed the standards set by the BGH in relation to environmental advertising when assessing such claims under unfair competition law. On an EU level, the restrictions regarding claims about greenhouse gas emissions are becoming even stricter, leaving advertisers with much to consider before making claims such as "climate neutral".

In a recent judicial case, the courts examined the legality of a termination notice delivered via postal service, where the core issue revolves around whether the employer fulfilled the legal requirement of notifying the employee of the termination of employment according to the Hungarian Labor Code.

Amidst the adoption of the Artificial Intelligence Act by the European Union Council, as the world’s first legislation setting a global standard for regulating artificial intelligence (“AI“), we are entering into the still unregulated territory of the relationship between patent law and AI.

To support the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, on 26 June 2024, the Hungarian National Bank issued two new regulations, incorporating changes in domestic legislation, guidelines of the European Banking Authority and lessons learned from supervisory experience.

Some segments of the real estate market are expected to improve slowly, while ESG considerations are becoming increasingly important, according to the DLA Piper Hungary Real Estate Intelligence Report 2024. These are the key trends shaping the Hungarian real estate market.

With effect from 11 July 2024, the National Bank of Ukraine (“NBU”) introduced a long-awaited exemption from the moratorium on foreign currency cross-border transfers (“Moratorium”). This exemption is expected to facilitate the repayment of Eurobonds by major Ukrainian corporate issuers, which had faced significant challenges in making payments under their Eurobonds since the beginning of the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

To further safeguard Hungary’s natural values and resources, promote a greener economy, and enhance the circular economy, the Hungarian Government introduced the possibility of two-level proceedings in environmental authority cases starting from 1 July 2024. This measure aims to strengthen the protection of public health and the environment.

In recent months, Bulgaria has undergone significant changes to its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) legislation intending to achieve the long-overdue complete transposition of the EU 2018/843 Directive into national law and meeting the higher standards set forth in the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) recommendations on Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), especially following the country’s inclusion in FATF’s so-called “grey list” of jurisdictions under increased monitoring.  Naturally, these changes give rise to a number of new obligations for businesses to comply with. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the most significant changes.

Further to the December 2023 amendments to the Romanian regime for screening inbound direct investments (that we previously covered here), which formally included EU investors within the scope of screening, the Romanian Parliament has adopted a new law (the “New Law”) to further strengthen the approach towards EU investors.

On 11 July 2024, new foreign currency (“FX”) easings came into effect to increase Ukraine's investment attractiveness and raise private foreign capital. Specifically, the latest package of amendments, introduced by Resolution No. 83 of the National Bank of Ukraine (the “NBU”) dated 09 July 2024 (“Resolution No. 83”), includes the following FX liberalization measures.

One of the most current news this year, which turned out to be equally interesting to both legal experts and IT industry professionals, was the adoption of the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (“AI Act“) as the first regulatory framework regarding artificial intelligence (“AI“) adopted at the EU level. The aim of the AI Act is to bring the European Union (“EU“) to the forefront of the artificial intelligence race, while simultaneously ensuring the protection of human rights, the environment, the rule of law, and democracy.

The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) ordered the National Revenue Agency (NRA) to repay default interest charged on precisely defined and fully paid advance corporate income tax instalments that were not declared.