PeliPartners has successfully represented the National Union of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies of Romania (UNSAR) before Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice in a dispute against the Romanian competition authority.

Sorainen has advised fashion retail platform Farfetch on its acquisition of augmented reality startup Wannaby. The transaction closed in April 2022.

Wiercinski Kwiecinski Baehr, working with Slaughter and May, has advised Schneider Electric on the disposal of its Eurotherm business unit to the Watlow Electric Manufacturing Company. Reportedly, Sullivan & Cromwell advised Watlow.

Baker McKenzie has advised Argo-Hytos Group owners Christian Kienzle and FSP Capcellence on selling a 79.5% stake in Argo-Hytos to the Voith Group.

Noerr has advised the Aurelius Group on its acquisition of dental distributors Dental Bauer and Pluradent. Binder Groesswang and Homburger reportedly advised Aurelius. Anwaltsgemeinschaft Stuttgart reportedly advised Dental Bauer, with Grub Brugger reportedly advising Pluradent.

Zivkovic Samardzic has advised OTA Sync on its latest investment round with the TS Ventures Fund, the DSI Business Angel Group, and Startup Wise Guys.

Dentons has advised Asseco Group company Asseco SEE on its acquisition of a majority stake in Bithat Solutions. Ionescu & Sava advised the seller.

On June 21, 2022, TGS Baltic announced that Tet’s acquisition of shares in Telia Latvija (reported by CEE Legal Matters on January 10, 2022) has now closed, following regulatory approval.

Weinhold Legal has advised Prague-based litigation financier LitFin on its entry into a strategic investment partnership with a US-based fund.

ODI Law has advised REDI Development on a EUR 1 million term loan to microcredit foundation Horizonti Skopje. Dentons Luxembourg reportedly advised REDI as well.

Asters, working pro bono with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, has advised the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on the inter-state proceedings being brought by Ukraine against the Russian Federation before the European Court of Human Rights.

Wiercinski Kwiecinski Baehr has advised the Avallon MBO Fund on its acquisition of a majority stake in Globema, together with the company's managers. Kondracki Celej advised Globema's shareholders.

Founding Partner Perparim Kalo has returned to his eponymous firm Kalo & Associates after serving for two years as a Justice of the Constitutional Court of Albania.

Mueller Partner Rechtsanwalte has announced the departure of the Heads of its Real Estate practice, Partners Manuela Maurer-Kollenz and Simone Maier-Huelle, to join PwC Legal together with their team on July 1, 2022.

Oppenheim has announced the leadership of the firm will be handed over to its three newly-appointed board members – Jozsef Bulcsu Fenyvesi, Aron Laszlo, and Istvan Szatmary – with Fenyvesi and Laszlo to hold non-executive roles and Szatmary to take over the role of Managing Partner on July 1, 2022.

Schoenherr has announced that Croatian cooperating firm Mandaric & Einwalter's Partners Vice Mandaric and Ivan Einwalter have been appointed as Local Partners with Schoenherr’s Croatian office.

CMS Budapest Partner and CEE Managing Director Dora Petranyi has been appointed as Global Co-Head of the firm's Technology, Media, and Communications Group, alongside CMS Germany's Pietro Fringuelli.

Eversheds Sutherland has announced it is combining with Sofia-based "long-standing relationship firm" Tsvetkova Bebov & Partners, as of June 22, 2022.

Mihaly Harcos, former Deloitte Partner and Tax Litigation Head, has joined the Budapest office of Bird & Bird as the new Head of the firm's Tax practice.

Popescu & Asociatii has announced that Gheorghe Buta joined the firm as a Senior Partner, in June 2022, to lead the firm's dispute and commercial arbitration practice areas.

Partners Ozan Karaduman, Merve Karaduman, and Filiz Toprak Esin have announced that the Karaduman Law Firm and Esin Legal have merged in May 2022 and will operate under the Karaduman & Esin Law Firm brand.

Tomasz Ciecwierz has joined Deloitte Legal’s Poland office as a Partner and will co-lead the firm’s M&A and Capital Markets practice alongside Partner Ryszard Manteuffel.

Osborne Clarke has announced it established an interdisciplinary Decarbonization practice in Poland, to be headed by Partner Katarzyna Baranska.

Former KPMG Legal Senior Managing Associate Flavius Florea has joined the Wolf Theiss Bucharest office as a Counsel and Head of the firm's TMT, IP & Data Protection practice.

The Supreme Court dealt with the liability of the insolvency administrator and the debtor's managing director (CEO) after the declaration of bankruptcy and their obligations to proceed with due managerial care.

As the usage of remote work tools increases, so does the demand for distance communication between employer and employee. Many would say that this is already a fact and on-going employee issues are easily addressed by sending an e-mail or making an entry in the company’s human resources management system. Yet the question remains if this is permissible under Bulgarian labor law and if it would be accepted by the Bulgarian state authorities in case of a dispute.

On 21 March 2022, new rules for personal data transfers to countries outside the United Kingdom (“UK”) came into force. Transfer of the respective data according to the previous rules will be possible until 21 September 2022, while starting from 22 September 2022 only new rules will apply to all new transfers. In addition, any contract on transfer of personal data concluded pursuant to the previous rules will be valid until 20 March 2024, while as of 21 March 2024 the parties thereto shall be liable to conclude a new contract, according to the new rules.

The EU has committed itself under the European Green Deal to decarbonizing the European economy and becoming carbon neutral by 2050. To this end, an accelerated transition from fossil fuels as a primary energy source to renewable energy will be required. The integration of intermittent and variable renewable energy sources (e.g., wind and solar) into the power system requires greater flexibility in supply and demand in order to stabilize the power grid, prevent extreme price fluctuations and maintain security of supply and electricity price affordability. Short-term energy storage and multi-month seasonal storage is one of the ways to achieve the goal of such greater flexibility.

Recent developments such as economic crises, pandemics, climate crisis, green transformation and the increasing importance of compliance with strategies such as European Green Deal necessitates a sustainable and innovative finance approach in the world and in our country's capital markets. Therefore, the need for long-term funds to finance the investments required for the transition to a low-carbon economy and projects that contribute to environmental sustainability increases the importance of capital markets. In order to accelerate the sustainable development of our country, in the 2022 target announcements and draft guidelines of the Turkish Capital Markets Association and the Capital Markets Board; it is seen that innovative capital markets financing products related to environmental and social problems such as climate change are supported.

On 31 May 2022 the EU’s securities markets regulator, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), published its supervisory briefing to ensure convergence in the supervision of investment funds with sustainability features, and in combating greenwashing by investment funds.

According to the Supreme Court, it is. In the case under review, a settlement agreement was concluded between the employer and an employee challenging their dismissal by the employer sending a scan of the signed copy of the agreement to the employee in an e-mail attachment, to which the employee's lawyer responded by e-mail confirming that the agreement was approved and signed by the employee.

The Budapest Chamber of Commerce (“BCC”) in May 2022 proposed the change of the system of the itemised tax of small businesses (“KATA”). The main goals of the change are to keep the advantages of the system, but also to prevent and eliminate unlawful tax avoidance.

Facial recognition system is considered an artificial intelligence solution empowered by a camera system, which can identify persons viewed based on image data stored in a related data base. Such systems have already been implemented around the globe in many countries and generally faced severe criticism, especially in Western democracies. Naturally, facial recognition systems have the capability of helping to prevent terrorist attacks and similar severe crimes an detect suspects and other persons of interest. In practice, however, such systems often provide inaccurate or biased results.

In 2019, two EU directives were adopted which must be transposed into Hungarian labour law within a short deadline. In order to comply with EU Directive 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working conditions and EU Directive 2019/1158 on work-life balance for parents and carers, the modifications of the Labour Code should be adopted by the beginning of August 2022. According to the current information, no substantive work has been started by the Hungarian legislator to modify the Labour Code in order to ensure the compliance with the provisions of the EU Directives.

Significant amendments were introduced into the Bankruptcy and Enforcement Code numbered 2004 ["BEC”] on November 30, 2021. One of these changes was regarding entitling debtors to sell their own seized property by consent.

In addition to its big impact on our social life, WhatsApp messenger (“WhatsApp”) or any other online messaging platform also is used in business life in order for people to communicate quickly and easily. Nowadays, many people are sending work related messages to their colleagues, discuss work related topics, sharing work related documents or conducting their meetings via WhatsApp or any other online messaging platforms.