Bojanovic & Partners has successfully represented football player Nemanja Nikolic in CAS arbitration between him and Israeli club Hapoel Tel Aviv. 

Law on Determining the Origin of Property and the Special Tax, the law which attracts a lot of public attention for two reasons, begins to apply on 12 March. General public attention is attracted given that this law was announced from time to time by various political parties which were in power during the last 20 years, while attention of competent public is attracted given the solutions provided for in the law.

Ketler & Partners, member of Karanovic, has advised ARX Equity Partners on its acquisition of Instrumentation Technologies and Red Pitaya, a handheld electronics lab, from its founders. The sellers were advised by Acuity Advisors.

Back in September 2020, the Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition (the “Commission”), following an internal review of the market dynamics and dawn raids at key players, initiated a formal investigation against three major undertakings active in both wholesale and retail of consumer electronics – Roaming Electronics d.o.o., Tehnomanija d.o.o. and Comtrade Distribution d.o.o. The Commission had, per publicly available pricing information and upon review of comparative practice, cited concerns that the undertakings involved were acting in concert, as well by potentially enforcing a resale price maintenance policy.

On January 15, 2021, CEE Legal Matters reported that BDK Advokati had advised Frontier Pharma and the Baystone investment group on the acquisition of Zdravlje Leskovac, a Serbian pharmaceutical company owned by Actavis, which is itself a subsidiary of Israel's Teva. CEEIHM spoke with Kiren Naidoo, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Frontier Pharma, to learn more about the acquisition.

Current Law on Health Insurance (Official Gazette of RS no. 25/2019) has been applied since 11 April 2019. The Government of the Republic of Serbia prepared the amendments to this law which are currently in public debate, after which they will enter parliamentary procedure. The draft law stipulates several significant novelties that we will present in this article. If it is adopted, the application of the draft law amending the Law on Health Insurance (“the Law”) will start on 1 June 2021.

In this time of economic distress, many countries have suffered. Yet, reports Milos Gledovic, Partner at Samardzic, Oreski & Grbovic, Serbia has proven resilient. “The pandemic has not affected the number of transactions in our market, except in the industries directly affected by anti-COVID measures,” Gledovic says, describing the overall economic situation in Serbia as stable.

COVID-19 has changed so many things in our lives. Nothing has remained untouched, from social relations to business. Naturally, it has also heavily affected M&A activity in Serbia, just as across the entire SEE region.

Recently, in the second half of January 2021, a public debate was held with regards to the Draft of the Law on Amendments to the Bankruptcy Law (hereinafter: "the Amendments"). If all the changes proposed by the Amendments were to be summarized, what they altogether aim at in practice is to improve the efficiency and transparency of bankruptcy procedure as well as to reduce the costs of the entire process, which in practice has so far proved to be one of the largest problems for creditors and other interested parties in this procedure.

Karanovic & Partners has advised precious and base metals explorer Adriatic Metals on the acquisition of the remaining 90% of the shares in Ras Metals, which holds exploration licenses for former silver-zinc-lead mines Kizevak and Sastavci, from Bulgaria-based Cuprum LTD and an unidentified Serbian individual. NKO Partners advised the sellers on the deal.

Former Kinstellar lawyers Selma Mujezinovic and Ksenija Sorajic Bakovic have left the firm to establish KSEL Advokati in Belgrade, Serbia. The founders will be supported by former Kinstellar colleague Una Draganic Vukovic.

The crossroads upon which Serbia finds itself has always been a coveted trading route, and the cause of many conflicts throughout history. Being located at such an important junction, it is of the utmost importance to invest into a transportation network, to seek constant improvements in this field, and to keep up with modern European growth. The General Master Plan for Transport in Serbia was adopted in 2009. However, the original period the plan was designed to cover – until 2027 – has now been extended and divided into three phases: short term (2021), medium term (2027), and long term (2033). The General Master Plan still serves as the platform for both major future and ongoing transportation and transportation-related projects.

Andrejic & Partners has advised Eyemaxx International Holding & Consulting, a member of the Eyemaxx Real Estate AG group, on its restructuring in Serbia.

Andrejic & Partners has advised German listed company Eyemaxx Real Estate AG on providing collaterals and giving security for a EUR 10 million loan from Bank of China’s Frankfurt branch.

At the beginning of February, Radovanovic Stojanovic & Partners opened its doors for business in Belgrade.

The Law on Archive Materials and Archiving Activities (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia”, No. 6/2020, ) (“Law”) started to apply as of 2 February 2021, so after many years Serbia finally regulates the protection of archival material in one place and a comprehensive manner.

On the wave of the pandemic of the Covid-19 virus and electronic business, it turned out that 2020 was the key year for the issue of digitalization of assets and financial resources. Until then, the unregulated and mostly uneven actions of financial actors imposed as an imperative further digitalization and the necessity of monitoring and harmonizing global contemporary tendencies related to digital assets.

In December 2020, the French Data Protection Authority (Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés or the “CNIL”) imposed significant fines of EUR 60 million for Google LLC and EUR 40 million for Google Ireland Limited, as well as of EUR 35 million for Amazon Europe Core.