CEE Legal Matters Deal of the Year Award Details

Explanation and Methodology

Deal Nomination

• Simply because CEE Legal Matters Reported on a deal does not mean it will automatically be considered.
• Only deals that are formally submitted will be considered, and all submissions must be received by CEE Legal Matters on or before January 9, 2026 (or November 21, 2025, for submission feedback). 
• Any firm can submit up to 3 deals per jurisdiction that they worked on, irrespective of whether they have a physical office in that country or not.

Eligible Deals

• Only deals that were closed between January 1 and December 31, 2025, will be considered, without exception. 
  • As opposed to previous years, since 2023, eligibility of deals is determined based on the date of closing, not of signing.
  • Because of this change, some deals that were submitted for previous editions of the DOTYs might be eligible this year because of their closing, rather than signing date but deals that won a previous edition of the DOTYs are NOT eligible again for the jurisdiction(s) for which it was awarded the DOTY in the past. 
• The only types of matters that CANNOT be considered are disputes. Beyond that, past shortlisted/winning deals have included traditional M&As, financings, refinancings, restructurings, PPPs, infrastructure projects, concessions, IPOs, bond issuances, etc.
• Ongoing advisory work (e.g., ongoing labor law advice) is not project/transactional in nature, and thus would be unlikely to be considered.

Submission Feedback

• Submissions received by November 21, 2025, will receive feedback as to whether there is anything wrong with the submission so that they can be corrected.
• Those received after November 21 will only receive a confirmation receipt and will be simply discarded if they do not follow the guidelines.
• Yes, there might be critical deals closed past November 21. If a firm exceeds the number of submissions allocated, we will reach out at the end of the year to any firms that have submitted more than that and ask them to pick which three of the submitted deals they'd like to put forward. Because of that, we encourage you to pick your top three deals and submit those before November 21, and should others come up, you can swap them out before January 9, 2026.

Deal Shortlisting and Selecting DOTY Winners

• As always, the editors and staff of CEE Legal Matters play no role in the evaluation of submissions or the selection of winners. Instead, submissions are exclusively evaluated by two panels of prominent lawyers from across the region
• Those submissions that satisfy the mandatory criteria (see below) will be automatically forwarded to our Shortlist Panels, consisting of senior partners at leading firms and/or highly experienced and respected General Counsel in each CEE jurisdiction who have agreed to rank the submissions for complexity, size, and market significance. Their votes will be tabulated, and the resulting shortlists for each market in which a minimum of three deals were submitted will be announced as the Shortlisted Deals for the 2026 awards for each jurisdiction. 
• The shortlisted submissions will then be forwarded to the Final Selection Committee, consisting of CEELM Knowledge Partners and select other legal experts from across the region, who will review and rank the finalists, leading to the final determination of the winner for each market. Members of the second and final panel are conflicted out from voting in markets where their firms are among the finalists or have a physical presence.

Previous Years’ Awards

The CEE Deals of the Year Awards, recognizing the largest and most important deals in Central and Eastern Europe, were launched in 2017. All past winners are aggregated on the DOTY website here (the 2025 winners will be included as a separate entry soon).

Submitting Deals: 

Submissions must be made using this online form on or before January 9, 2026. Please Note: Submissions received after that date, or not submitted using the online form will not be considered. There is NO flexibility on deadline extensions – please do not write to ask. 

We understand the plight of filling in these submissions. We made the form as simple/short as we could but please make sure to follow these submission rules when filling it in to avoid your submission being discarded:

• Name: That is your name or the preferred contact for the submission
• Email: Your email address or the preferred contact for the submission
• Country for Consideration: Do NOT select the country in which YOU are based – rather, select the country for which you'd like the deal to be considered (i.e. for the 2025 DOTY in Country X). Select one. If you'd like the deal to be considered for multiple jurisdictions, you'll need to resubmit the form using a new country.
• Simple name of deal: Ultimately, this is what should appear on the plaque should a deal win. DO NOT WRITE LAW FIRM X ADVISED ON Y – this is not a press release. Please identify all parties by name – both buyer and seller, or both borrower or lender, for example, where applicable – and the kind of transaction. Do NOT explain the deal here or add information about its size, significance, or impact. If it’s an acquisition or sale, please list the buyer’s name first. Examples might be “Ukraine Eurobond Issue” or “CVC Capital’s Acquisition of Zabka Polska from Mid-Europa.” Please note: Financings are considered part of acquisitions, even if negotiated separately. Firms that worked only on the financing part of the deal should nonetheless identify the deal by the names of the acquiring and selling entities, with an explanation of financing aspects and their role provided separately, below.
• Date of deal signing: The date on which the deal was signed. 
• Date of deal closing: The date on which the deal closed. 
  • If the two happened on the same date, then simply mark down the same date.
  • Several submissions were discarded in the past because the date of the deal closing was before the deal signing.
• Name of lawyer in charge of project:
  • This is the main point of contact for the deal for your client from your firm's side.
  • It is usually a Partner but that is not a requirement.
• Your lawyer's email: The email address of the lawyer who led the project from your firm's side. We *may* reach out to them for clarifications if needed.
• Name of submitting firm’s client: Clients HAVE to be disclosed. Please do not make a submission stating you advised a "leading [undisclosed] client". IF you were mandated by a different firm (e.g., a global counsel), do NOT list them as the client – rather, the actual end client they were representing.
• Client contact's name: 
  • Client's names and contact details will not be shared, nor are clients automatically contacted.
  • This is strictly to be used as a last resort for submission validation purposes.
  • IF you worked directly for a client, list the relevant contact with the client.
  • IF you were mandated by a different firm (e.g., a global counsel), list the contact details of that mandating firm.
• Your client's email: 
  • IF you were mandated by a client directly, list their contact email.
  • IF you were mandated by a different firm, list the relevant partner contact.
  • Again, this information is NOT shared and is used strictly for data validation purposes.
• Other law firms involved, on all sides of deal, and their roles and clients
  • This field not being filled in properly led to most submissions being rejected
  • Just law firms. NOT individual lawyers, NOT financial advisors. We only want to know which law firms were involved, and for which clients. Where applicable, please include firms advising on financing, even if they did not work on the underlying transaction itself.
    • If you represented a buyer on a transaction, you must identify the advisor of the seller, and vice-versa (e.g., “X advised the seller”)
    • If you represented a borrower on a financing, you must identify the advisor of the lender, and vice-versa (e.g., “X advised the lender”)
    • If you advised only on local aspects of a larger regional or global deal, you must identify the firms acting as global advisors, and vice-versa (e.g., “Firm A acted as the global counsel for party B; Firm C acted as the global counsel for party D”)
    • If the counter-party relied strictly on its in-house team please note that (e.g., “X relied on its in-house team”)
• Why should this deal be considered for the deal of the year award:
  • This is your opportunity to talk to the jurors and explain why the deal should be considered as the most important deal in your targeted jurisdiction.
  • Do NOT simply copy/paste your press release on the deal – odds are those will be far less convincing submissions.
  • Your team's composition on the deal is of little importance.
  • Show, don't say: Too often, submissions state a deal is "groundbreaking" and involves "leading companies." Most deals competing will tick off those boxes – that’s why they are put forward. Tell jurors what the complexities of the deal were, what novelties were involved in the deal, and what makes the company(ies) involved “leading” ones, be it its size, revenue, market share, etc.

Important Note - No Confidential Information or Confidential Deals:

Please only submit information that is publicly disclosable. The information provided will be shared with the jurors so every bit of information included in your submissions will be considered as publishable, regardless of how it is marked. 

The online form also includes all relevant instructions. If you have any questions, please contact CEE Legal Matters’ Managing Editor, Radu Cotarcea, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..