The Lambadarios Law Firm, working with Bracewell, has advised Fotowatio Renewable Ventures on its acquisition of the majority stake in a 600-megawatt battery storage platform in Greece.

Dentons has advised Belgium-based real estate developer Codic on the development of the Green Court multifunctional project in Budapest and on its EUR 77 million sale to Groupama Gan REIM. CMS reportedly advised Groupama.

Sorainen has advised Laba7 on a EUR 640,000 investment from the Coinvest Capital fund in cooperation with 44 members of the Lithuanian Business Angel Network LitBAN community. TGS Baltic advised Coinvest Capital.

White & Case has advised MidEuropa on its acquisition of a majority stake in Optegra. Eversheds Sutherland reportedly advised the seller.

Cobalt has advised Taba Invest on the development project for a 3.3-hectare area on the left bank of the river Nemunas in Kaunas through a joint venture with the SBA Group. Ellex advised the SBA Group.

E+H, working with Paris-based Sekri Valentin Zerrouk, has advised the Valtus Group on its acquisition of Management Factory Corporate Advisory. KPMG Law advised the sellers.

Paksoy, working with Latham & Watkins, has advised Imerys on the sale of its high-temperature solutions business to Platinum Equity, at an enterprise value of approximately EUR 930 million.

Cerha Hempel has advised ARE Austrian Real Estate on its acquisition of Vienna's Green Worx office complex from the UniImmo Deutschland real estate mutual fund managed by Union Investment. Schoenherr reportedly advised the sellers.

Djingov Gouginski Kyutchukov & Velichkov has advised the administrators and senior secured lenders of Bulsatcom UH Holdco Limited on the sale of Bulsatcom to Viva Corporate Bulgaria. Kambourov & Partners and, reportedly, Squire Patton Boggs advised Viva Corporate Bulgaria.

SSW Pragmatic Solutions has advised the Photon Energy Group on the increase of its stake in Lerta from 24.27% to 56.75% through an acquisition from PGE Ventures, Newberg, and the ASI Valuetech Seed Fund for approximately EUR 6.9 million.

Clifford Chance has advised Baltic Hub on the expansion and refinancing of its existing debt and the construction of the third deep-water sea container terminal in Gdansk.

Dentons Turkish affiliate Balcioglu Selcuk Ardiyok Keki Attorney Partnership has advised Sabanci Ventures on its investment in SCW.AI.

Former Hogan Lovells Senior Associate Mateusz Dereszynski has joined Eversheds Sutherland's Polish office as a Partner and Head of the firm's Banking & Finance practice effective December 1, 2022.

Rymarz Zdort and Maruta Wachta have announced they will merge into Rymarz Zdort Maruta.

Former BDO Legal-affiliated firm BDO Legal Latala i Wspolnicy has spun off to launch Forton Legal in Poland with Wieslaw Latala and Katarzyna Zajan-Aydogan as Partners.

Greenberg Traurig’s Warsaw office has launched its new Environmental, Social, and Governance practice led by Senior Associate Joanna Kuc.

Former Counsel Katarzyna Czwartosz-Liber and former Associate Monika Duzynska have been promoted to Local Partners with White & Case's Warsaw office, effective January 1, 2023, as part of the firm's global promotion round. 

Former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Senior Associate Ricardo Gardini de Andrade has joined DLA Piper's Vienna office as a Partner to work in the firm's Litigation & Regulatory practice.

Former CMS Senior Counsel Peter Szilas has joined Jalsovszky as a Senior Associate and Head of the firm's Commercial Litigation practice.

Former Aldertree Legal Partners Zoran Draskovic and Peter Hodal have joined Hillbridges as Partners together with their team.

PwC Legal Polska Managing Partner Cezary Zelaznicki has been appointed the EMEA Legal Business Solutions Leader for the PwC Network as of November 7, 2022.

Former Calavros & Partners Partner Dimitris Babiniotis has joined Zepos & Yannopoulos as a Partner and Head of Dispute Resolution.

Cemile Demir Gokyayla has joined KP Law as a Partner and Head of the firm's Arbitration/ADR practice along with her team.

Starting in February 2023, Partner Alexander Popp will take over as Managing Partner, with Partner Gudrun Stangl continuing in the COO position. Rounding out the Schoenherr Steering Committee are Partners Matei Florea, Thomas Kulnigg, and Franz Urlesberger.

The Decree on the Determination of the Companies Subject to Independent Audit ["Decree"] No. 6434 published in the Official Gazette dated November 30, 2022 and numbered 32029, abolished the Decree on the Determination of the Companies Subject to Independent Audit No. 2018/11597 dated March 26, 2018, published in the Official Gazette dated May 26, 2018 and numbered 30432, and amended the thresholds of the criteria for determining the companies subject to independent audit while also amending the scope. These amendments aim to adapt the scope of independent audit to today's needs and to harmonize with the EU regulations.

On 28 November 2022, the Council of the European Union gave its final approval to the Regulation on Foreign Subsidies distorting the Internal Market (FSR) following the adoption of the regulation by the European Parliament on 10 November 2022.

The fact that the last 20 years have been marked by the expansion of digital markets has undoubtedly contributed to the "enthronement" of leading companies in dominant positions all over the planet, created issues of effective competition enforcement regulations and the obvious need for more comprehensive and better regulation of the markets themselves.

Hungarian merger control is generally aligned with the relevant EU rules with only relatively minor exceptions or special rules. For example, a notable special rule – which follows similar trends in major European jurisdictions – is the existence of the soft threshold regime, which enables the Hungarian Competition Authority (the Gazdasági Versenyhivatal, “GVH”) to intervene in case the traditional/“hard” thresholds are not met, but where competition is threatened on a specific market (e.g. in case of “killer acquisitions”).

The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye published the Guidelines on Correlating Business Models in the Field of Payments with Payment Service Types (“Guidelines”).
The Guidelines provide detailed explanations as to how payment services regulated under the Law No. 6493 on Payment and Securities Settlement Systems, Payment Services and Electronic Money Institutions (the “Law”) and the Regulation on Payment Services and Electronic Money Issuance and Payment Service Providers (the “Regulation”) can be correlated with the business models in the field of payments, in order to ensure compliance with the regulations and uniformity in operating licenses to be granted by the CBRT for authorizations. You can access the Guidelines here.

According to a non-binding opinion delivered on September 20, 2022, by Athanasios Rantos, influential adviser to the European Court of Justice, antitrust authorities may also assess infringement of personal data protection rules during their investigations.

Hungary's parliament passed a package of anti-corruption laws on 3 October 2022 as part of the commitments made by the government to the European Commission.

History shows that the last bastion of freedom of speech, which guarantees these values, is the free press. But it’s no secret that since 2015, key constitutional values have been in crisis. Over the past three years, there have been repeated legal actions by state institutions, state-owned companies, businessmen and other lobbying organizations aimed at stifling the work of journalists, publishers and NGOs.

In the last two months, the Commission for the Protection of Competition (“Commission”) initiated several different proceedings i.e., 3 gun-jumping cases, one for abuse of a dominant position and one case regarding restrictive agreements. It is necessary to pay attention to these proceedings, because they are not coincidences but rather are initiated due to Commission’s reasonable doubt that market participants have breached the Law on Protection of Competition of Republic of Serbia (“Law“).

Following a thorough evaluation and review of the 2010 rules regarding vertical agreements and concerted practices, the European Commission adopted the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (“VBER”), which entered into force on 1 June 2022, accompanied by revised Guidelines on Vertical Restraints. It is assumed that the latest alterations and their potential effects on the commercial ecosystem will slowly find their place in Turkish competition legislation and practice.

In the previous article, we have included information about the value of cryptocurrencies in the metaverse within the framework of the financial metaverse and the transactions that constitute the subject of the financial metaverse. Now, from the perspective of the financial metaverse, we will discuss the banking sector, the current status of cryptocurrencies in Turkey, and whether the digital products obtained as a result of financial transactions can be evaluated within the scope of property rights by the courts, the compliance processes and legal aspects that should be considered in Meta-Fi.

Warsaw, 25 November 2022 – HR departments located outside our country, acting on behalf of their employer, are nowadays a fairly common practice, especially in multinational corporations. What does the liability of these individuals look like? The risk of penal liability for minor offences committed by employees operating outside Poland against employees operating in Poland is low, but it can happen. This occurs in cases where the perpetrator acted outside Poland, but the consequences belonging to the elements of a minor offence ensued in Poland.