Established by senior Croatian lawyers from three separate firms, Lovric│Novokmet│Smrcek — LNS — has opened its doors in Zagreb.

When it first appeared, the compliance field seemed little more than “regulatory” in new clothes – a fancy name for making sure a company stayed within the ambit of provisions set out in the laws of a country. As time passed, however, more and more companies started treating compliance as a practice in its own right, and as a field of law … that is much more than just law. Compliance became an area of interest not only to seasoned lawyers, but also to scholars, consultants, and in-house counsels – all levels of legal practice became aware of its significance.

This time, our law firm marketing friends across CEE considered the following question: “What one part of your job would you most appreciate having more help with – not in terms of training or capability, but simply in terms of time?”

Use of Artificial intelligence is growing rapidly. Some of the world’s largest industries are using AI as frequently as any other business tool. Still, there are industries which seem to be more risk averse. Pharma integrates AI at the rate of 31% in the service operations sector, 31% in the product/service development sector, and 27% in the marketing sector. Does that mean that pharma is lagging in implementing AI?

Divjak, Topic Bahtijarevic has advised Energia Naturalis on its mandatory public offer for all outstanding shares in Luka Ploce.

Croatia's Divjak, Topic & Bahtijarevic is mourning the unexpected passing of Founding Partner Sasa Divjak.

By outsourcing production of major parts of car components, carmakers have also outsourced a substantial amount of their financing needs and associated risks to their suppliers. Still, despite rather slim margins, the prospect of a fairly stable cash flow over a number of years has made the automotive supplier business viable in the past. However, this viability is becoming questionable. This is visible in the number of struggling or even insolvent suppliers, the German group Eisenmann being a very recent example.

ODI has represented AIK Banka and Societe Generale's Slovenian entities on a EUR 36 million cross-border syndicated debt refinancing of the Don Don Group. Selih & Partnerji assisted Don Don on the deal.

Bojovic Draskovic Popovic & Partners and the other members of the South East Legal Alliance have become official partners of Italy's Grimaldi Alliance.

Divjak, Topic Bahtijarevic Partner Mario Krka says that “there are currently three major legislative changes that everybody in Croatia is talking about: changes to the Corporate Law Act, certain tax bylaws amendments, and upcoming changes to the Civil Procedure Act.”

Schoenherr has advised Tele2 AB on the EUR 220 million sale of its Croatian business, Tele2 Croatia, to the United Group. Kirkland & Ellis and Divjak, Topic & Bahtijarevic represented the BC Partners-backed United Group.

Ante Sucur has been the Head of Legal Affairs and Company Secretary at Mercury Processing Services International Ltd (formerly Intesa Sanpaolo Card Ltd) since 2009. Before joining Mercury, he worked for five and a half years at Privredna Banka Zagreb d.d. (which is also part of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group).

In December 2018, the Croatian Parliament adopted amendments to the Renewables Act and the Government adopted two implementing regulations, which jointly apply as of January 1, 2019 (the “2019 Amendments”). In this article we briefly outline the 2019 Amendments and then discuss how they affect the current Croatian incentives system for renewable energy sources (RES) and new investments in RES.

Croatia introduced significant changes to the Companies Act and the Court Register Act on 20 April 2019 with the main goal of easing the incorporation of (simple) limited liability companies ("ltd companies").

Zuric i Partneri has advised both OTP Bank d.d. and Splitska Banka d.d. on their merger.

CMS lawyers Andrea Potz in Austria, Jelena Nushol in Croatia, Marek Oleksyn and Lukasz Dynysiuk in Poland, Petra Corba Stark and Michal Hutan in Slovakia, and Tetyana Dovgan in Ukraine have been promoted to the firm's partnership as part of its 2019 global promotion round.

On the eve of a widely-expected global economic downturn, the Croatian economy finally emerged from “junk” investment status, and rating agencies now rank it as “investment” tier. Formal confirmation of this new status is expected to come in the course of spring 2019 – when the first signs of a slowdown in the local economy are already signalled. The country’s GDP is growing shyly but persistently and after five years of membership in the EU there is a visible uplift in the trade balance with export of goods and services (predominantly with other EU-member countries) as the main driver.

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.