This Legal Monitoring Report includes the latest and most relevant amendments to the national legislation for forward-looking businesses. This month, several amendments were made to the Law on State Aid, Law on Consumer Protection, Law of Protection of Trade Secrets, as well as to the Customs Code and Law on Energy. The Report also outlines changes to the IT parks activity, as well as recent adjustments to the minimum and average salary in the economy for 2024.

Wardynski & Partners has advised Senacor Technologies on its acquisition of Finanteq. Tomczykowski Tomczykowska advised the sellers.

On 20 October 2023, the National Agency for Administration and Regulation in Communications (“ANCOM”) and the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization submitted for public consultation the draft law establishing the national legislative measures necessary to implement the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Single Market for Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (“DSA Regulation”) in Romania.

Former SLV Legal Partners Alexandru Stanescu, Irina Vasile, and Tudor Velea have recently announced the rebranding of their outfit to Lexters – a Bucharest-based boutique law firm focusing on CEE tech companies and start-ups – and unveiled a new partnership with the Rubik Hub.

The past few months in Serbia have seen significant public attention focused on two media laws: the Law on Public Information and Media and the Law on Electronic Media. Various opinions have been expressed, with the government of the Republic of Serbia, specifically the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information, as the formal proposer of these contentious amendments, while independent journalist associations have taken the opposite stance. On October 26, 2023, the National Assembly passed and adopted these amendments. Less than a decade after significant changes, these two crucial media laws have come under scrutiny to align with international standards of freedom of expression.

Lithuania’s intellectual property (IP) market is active in the area of trademarks and copyright, with businesses and creators starting to understand the value of IP protection. This trend does not yet extend to patents, but trade secrets are a highly litigated area, and their protection is broader than ever.