Members of the BPV Legal in Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have provided local counsel in those jurisdictions to Dutch property managers MVGM on its takeover of the property management division of the Jones Lang LaSalle Group in Continental Europe. The Hague office of the Dutch law firm Barents Krans acted as lead counsel to MVGM, and Watson, Farley & Williams was lead counsel to JLL, working with local counsel from Schoenherr in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania.
Watson Farley & Williams also worked with Orange Clover in the Netherlands, Argo Law in Belgium, Bonn & Schmitt in Luxembourg, and PLMJ in Portugal.
JLL provides financial and professional services specialising in real estate. It serves owners, occupiers, investors, and developers of real estate in more than 80 countries, including nine locations across Germany.
BPV Grigorescu Stefanica describes MVGM as "a leader on the Dutch real estate market, focusing on the property management sector, [with] approximately 900 employees in over 20 different locations in the Netherlands." According to the firm, "following the transaction, MVGM will become one of the top five players on property management market in Europe. Moreover, the access of MVGM to another eight countries from Europe, namely Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovakia, will be facilitated and its activities in the Netherlands and Germany will be extended by 540 new employees."
According to the firm, "MVGM will integrate gradually the new activities in its current business, in cooperation with JLL, by concluding separate transactions in each country, between September and December 2019, once all the necessary approvals from the authorities will be obtained."
The bpv Grigorescu Ștefanica team in Bucharest was coordinated by Managing Partner Catalin Grigorescu and consisted of Managing Associate Cristinas de Jonge and Cristina Randjak and Associates Diana Radu and Andrada Popescu. Lawyers from bpv Huegel in Vienna, bpv Jadi Nemeth in Hungary, and bpv Braun Partners in the Czech Republic and Slovakia provided assistance in those jurisdictions.
The WFW team advising JLL was led by Frankfurt Corporate Partner Torsten Rosenboom, working closely with Senior Associate Jan Pesek. They were assisted in Frankfurt by Partner Christoph Naumann, Managing Associate Jan Winzen, and Associates Janine Henger, Marius Rothermund, Matthias Murr, and Nicolas Persch. WFW's team in Hamburg consisted of Partners Ahmad Khonsari and Eckrolf Berg and Of Counsel Torge Rademacher. In Munich, the team included Partners Felix Siebler and Nikolaus Krienke, Senior Associate Christian Schnurrer, and Associate Maximilian Koch. London Partner Jeremy Robinson and Senior Associate Richard O’Brien provided EU competition and corporate advice respectively, and the firm's team in Madrid included Partner Gonzalo Aranzabal and Associates Borja Gavilaa and Jaime Arrancudiaga.
Schoenherr's team was led by Vienna-based Partner Sascha Hodl and Prague-based Partner Vladimir Cizek. The team included, in Bucharest, Partner Madalina Neagu and Attorney-at-Law Andra Jegan; in Prague, Attorneys-at Law Jitka Kadlcikova, Helena Hangler, and Jiri Marek; in Warsaw, Partner Pawel Halwa and Counsel Krzysztof Pawlak; and in Bratislava, Partner Stanislav Kovar and Michal Lucivjansky.
JLL's in-house team included Head of Legal & Compliance - EMEA Nicolas Taylor, Head of Legal & Compliance - Germany Antonios Kotsis, and Senior Legal Counsel Melanie Schwade.
