The Data protection is an increasingly important issue in today’s digital world. The rapid development of information technologies has made it easier for state institutions and private sector organizations to access thousands of personal data daily. This situation has increased the processing and transfer of personal data and has led to the necessity of protection.

With its resolution numbered i-SPK.35.B.1 (dated 19 September 2024 and numbered 1484) (the “Resolution“), the Capital Markets Board (the “CMB“) clarified the legal status of non-fungible tokens (“NFTs“) and crypto assets used in virtual games.

The European Commission had previously indicated that it will review the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) this year to see if any changes are needed in light of the experience of the past six years.

At the beginning of the week, Apple introduced its latest iPhone 16, which entices customers with the integration of artificial intelligence called "Apple Intelligence."

There’s a new windfall value-added tax (“VAT”) reclaim opportunity in Hungary based on a recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”).

The minimum wage (statutory minimum wage) is the amount that an employer must pay to an employee for his/her work, in any case of a full-time job. Guaranteed minimum wage is also considered as a type of minimum wage for jobs requiring at least secondary education or secondary vocational qualifications, hence it is always a higher amount.

Since the start of the war, Russia has inflicted severe damage on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leading to a critical need for comprehensive rebuilding efforts. As a result of the attacks, Ukraine has lost over 9 GW of electricity generating capacities, while local gas production has dropped 5–10 percent.

AI is developing rapidly in Serbia and numerous initiatives are emerging daily. Therefore, a working group, which includes our Schoenherr expert Marija Vlajković, is already in the process of drafting a new Law on Artificial Intelligence. The final draft is expected by spring 2025.

Bancassurance is a strategic partnership in which a bank collaborates with an insurance company to offer insurance products to the bank’s customers. This mutually beneficial arrangement not only allows banks to generate extra income through the sale of insurance policies, but also enables insurance companies to broaden their customer reach without the need to expand their sales teams.

It can be interesting to examine how other countries address anti-competitive agreements. The European trend is certainly moving towards penalising a broader range of cartel behaviour using new tools, rather than relying primarily on leniency applications (self-reporting) as in the past.

As of 1 September 2024, not all employers are obliged to carry out compulsory medical examinations of their employees. The Labour Safety Act stipulates that other laws may specify the types of work for which such examinations will be compulsory. The Ministry of the Interior published a decree on the subject on its website at the end of August and it became applicable on 1 September 2024.

In the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia no. 71, dated August 16, 2024, a new Rulebook on Tax Exemption on Capital Gains Realized from the Transfer of Copyright, Related Rights, and Industrial Property Rights (“Rulebook“) was published.

On 9 September, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine officially published Order No. 380 dated 1 August 2024, which introduces significant changes to the regulation of customs clearance of biomethane by pipeline. From now on, Ukrainian biomethane producers will be able to export biomethane to the European Union via the Ukrainian gas transmission system through interstate interconnection points with four EU countries.

In the Hungarian Gazette of 15 August 2024, two new SZTFH (Authority for Regulated Activities) decrees were published, which supplement and further detail the provisions of the Hungarian ESG Act. The first decree on the register of ESG reports, software and qualifiers entered into force on 18 August, while the provisions on the registration of ESG reports and qualifiers enter into force on 16 September.

Romania’s National Office for the Prevention and Control of Money Laundering has recently published a draft of an Emergency Ordinance amending and supplementing Law no. 129/2019 on the prevention and control of money laundering and terrorist financing (the Emergency Ordinance) in order to harmonise domestic legislation with the provisions of Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing (the Fifth AML Directive), as amended by Regulation (EU) 2023/113 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets (the MiCAR).

In 2022, the Slovak Parliament passed two long-awaited laws, an Act No 201/2022 on construction (hereinafter the “Construction Act”) and an Act No 200/2022 on spatial planning (hereinafter the “Spatial Planning Act”). I wrote about the adoption of these laws and their content in my last article published in CEE Legal Matters. Both laws, which together were intended to bring long-anticipated systemic changes to spatial-planning and building permit procedures in Slovakia, were supposed to take effect on 1 April 2024; however, this never happened.

We have begun our analysis of how to calculate the five-calendar day period specified in Art. 10 para. (7) of the Emergency Ordinance 120/2021 on the management, operation and implementation of the national e-invoicing system RO e-Factura[1] (“GEO 120/2021”) in the context of the Ministry of Finance’s LinkedIn post of August 2024, namely:

The amended Rules of Proceedings (hereinafter referred to as the “Rules of Proceedings”) of the Permanent Court of Arbitration attached to the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (hereinafter referred to as the “Arbitration Court”) came into force on 15 September 2024. The amended rules are to be applied in arbitration proceedings initiated on or after the date of its entry into force.