CEE Legal Matters

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  • Greenberg Traurig Represents PZU in Selection of HR Management

    Greenberg Traurig has advised the PZU Group in the tender procedure for selecting an HR management & payroll system supplier.

    The firm’s representation involved drafting agreements concerning the implementation, maintenance and development of a new HR management & payroll system, as well as participating in negotiations with the bidders. During the tender procedure Greenberg Traurig also negotiated license agreements related to the IT system under implementation. According to the firm, “the purpose of the new HR management & payroll system is to harmonize the IT processes and systems earmarked for the management of human resources in the companies of the PZU Group.”

    The Greenberg Traurig team was led by Warsaw Partner Michal Fereniec, supported by Associate Piotr Smolarczyk. 

     

  • Squire Sanders Strengthens Private Equity and VC Team in Poland

    Squire Sanders has announced that senior corporate lawyer Michal Karwacki has joined the firm’s Warsaw office as Of Counsel.  

    Karwacki, who joins from Dentons, has over 14 years of transactional experience, with a special focus on the private equity and venture capital sectors, and will lead Squire Sanders’ practice in those areas in Poland.

    According to Squire Sanders, Karwacki “is known for his skills in managing and advising on all aspects and stages of private equity and VC transactions, from matching potential deal partners, and structuring and negotiating the deal to closing and post-completion work. He has a strong track record in the sector, and among recent deal highlights he acted for MCI Capital Partners on the acquisition of shares for a leading web portal.”

    The firm expects that Karwacki, together with other partners in the Global Corporate Practice in London, Moscow, and Warsaw, will help accelerate the growth of the firm’s private equity practice in Poland and support similar deals in the wider region and neighboring emerging markets such as Turkey.

    Peter Swiecicki, Squire Sanders’ Managing Partner in Warsaw, said: “We are very excited that Michal Karwacki, whom we have known for many years, has joined our firm. In addition to his excellent reputation and commercial awareness, Michal has a remarkable talent for building new relationships and strengthening them over the years – with existing and new clients and our practice as a whole, he is sure to be a great success.”

     

  • Hedman Partners Advises NGO on Employment and Labor Law

    Hedman Partners is advising the Estonian Uuskasutuskeskus (the “Re-Use Center”) on employment and labor law issues to help the NGO revise its employment contracts with its staff.

    Katriin Juriska, the CEO of Uuskasutuskeskus, said that the organization has been expanding its activities successfully to include five re-use shops in Tallinn, Tartu and Parnu. “We had to rely on external professional advice to manage employment risks during the expansion phase and also to ensure full compliance with the latest employment and labor law changes,” she explained. 

    Uuskasutus is a non-profit and independent social undertaking established in 2004 by the Good Deed Foundation. Its objective is to put used things back in circulation and to make re-use and re-design easily accessible and commonplace for everyone in Estonia. The organization works in close co-operation with the Estonian Association of Families with Many Children, the Dharma Foundation, shelters, fire victims and the social departments of many local authorities. 

    The Good Deed Foundation is the only venture philanthropy organization in the Baltics, concentrating on supporting high-impact social initiatives (both social enterprises and non-profits). The foundation’s achievements include both achieving systemic change (state-level adoption support system for children without parental care) and starting off successful social enterprises (in the fields of: employment for people with disabilities; HIV-prevention; re-use). The organization’s portfolio includes such spin-offs as Youth to School program to solve educational problems, Health Estonia Foundation for HIV-prevention and the Re-use Center to promote sustainable consumption. 

    Hedman Partners’ Managing Partner Merlin Salvik believes that social responsibility is an integral part of the law firm’s corporate philosophy. “We are happy to invest our time and know-how to help charity organizations and NGOs, because a third sector based on a solid and transparent foundation is a great asset to the society,” added Salvik. 

    In a formal statement on the firm’s website, Hedman Partners claims that, “according to a cooperation agreement between the Good Deed Foundation and the Estonian Bar Association, Estonia’s leading law firms are providing more and more pro bono legal advice to third sector organizations, because most NGOs lack the means to bring their activities to compliance with all the latest legal acts on their own.”

     

  • Boyanov Advised Citigroup on EUR 185 million notes

    Boyanov & Co. has advised Citigroup Global Markets Limited as underwriter of EUR 185 million new notes issued by Glasstank, a Dutch SPC of the Yioula Group.

    The Yioula Group is a leading producer of glass containers for the food and beverage industries in the Balkan region, with main production subsidiaries in Bulgaria and Romania. Boyanov & Co. advised the underwriter and the initial purchaser of the notes on all Bulgarian law matters related to the guarantee and security provided for the notes by the Bulgarian subsidiaries of the group. Boyanov & Co. also advised the Security Agent, Wilmington Turst, on the Bulgarian security for the notes.

    The deal closed successfully on May 21, 2014.

     

  • SPCG Advises on Enterprise Investors on Taking-Up of Shares

    Studnicki Pleszka Cwiakalski Gorski has represented Enterprise Investors in negotiations concerning the taking-up of shares in Nu-Med Grupa, a company in which Enterprise Investors until recently had been the minority shareholder.

    Enterprise Investors, a large private equity and venture capital fund in Poland and CEE, will hold 68% of shares in Nu-Med Grupa , with the current majority shareholders of Nu-Med Grupa retaining 32% of shares. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.

    In a statement released by SPCG, the firm announced that, “Within the joint enterprise, Enterprise Investors and Nu-Med Grupa S.A. envisage inter alia the construction of a modern radiotherapy centre for cancer cure in Tomaszow Mazowiecki. This facility is constructed in cooperation with Tomaszow Health Center, a hospital belonging to the office of district authorities in Tomaszow Mazowiecki. The facility will begin to treat patients in the Q4 2014.”

    After the capital increase, Nu-Med Grupa will manage radiotherapy centers in Elblag, Katowice, and Tomaszow Mazowiecki.

    The SPCG team was led by Partner Artur Zapala, assisted by Agnieszka Kolodziej-Arendarska, Agnieszka Zelek, Lukasz Przyborowski, and Adam Kostrzewa.

  • Another Term at Lewiatan Arbitration Court for Gessel Partner

    Gessel has announced that Managing Partner Beata Gessel-Kalinowska vel Kalisz has been reappointed to another three-year term as President of the Arbitration Court affiliated with the Polish Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan.

    She has held the post since 2011. Gessel-Kalinowska vel Kalisz’s arbitration practice grows out of her specializations in merger and acquisitions law, private equity/ venture capital, and business law. According to a statement released by the Gessel firm, “Beata Gessel has a long track record in alternative dispute resolution before permanent arbitration tribunals as well as in ad hoc proceedings (under the ICC, Lewiatan, SAKIG, and UNCITRAL rules, among others), having participated in over 60 domestic and international cases in fields such as M&A, construction law, and commercial contracts.”

    Gessel-Kalinowska vel Kalisz is an arbitrator at the Lewiatan Arbitration Court in Warsaw, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, VIAC in Vienna, the International Arbitration Court of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Bucharest, and the Arbitration Court of the Chamber of Industrial Energy and Energy Purchasers in Warsaw. She is also a member of the Commission on Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, of the European Branch of the Royal Institute of Arbitrators in London, of the Polish ADR Association, and of the Board of Directors of ArbitralWomen. 

     

  • Stoica & Asociatii Partner Elected VP of World Link for Law

    Stoica & Asociatii announced that its Founding Partner, Cristiana Stoica, has been elected as the Vice-President of the World Link for Law legal Network.

    World Link for Law was established as Euro-Link for Lawyers in the late 1980s and now comprises a network of 70 law firms with 80 offices in 47 countries worldwide bringing together a total of over 350 partners and 700 professional staff.

    Stoica was elected as part of the 25th annual meeting of the organization held in Amsterdam between May 16 and May 18. She replaces Philippe Bedard from the French firm KBRC & Associes. 

     

  • Vasil Kisil & Partners Advises EBRD on Loan to UBC-Promo

    Vasil Kisil & Partners has announced that it provided legal advice to the EBRD on its April 2013 loan of USD 10 million to UBC-Promo to provide financing for its expansion of existing manufacturing facilities and construction of a new product line.

    Vasil Kisil & Partners advised on Ukrainian law matters with regard to the project, including drafting of the transaction documents and issuing a legal opinion for the EBRD. The firm’s team was led by Partners Oleg Alyoshin and Yulia Kyrpa, who were assisted by Senior Associate Anna Sisetska. 

    The EBRD has been advised in other deals by Asters (see April 24, 2014 and December 20, 2013) and Dentons (see March 17, 2014). The bank also purchased a minority stake in Amtel Properties, a deal in which Vasil Kisil & Partners represented the seller (March 27, 2014)

     

  • Arzinger Partner Named Deputy Prosecutor General

    Acting Prosecutor General of Ukraine Oleg Makhnytsky has appointed Arzinger Partner Vitalii Kasko Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine. According to Arzinger, one of Kasko’s primary responsibilities will be issues of international legal cooperation. 

    Kasko started his career in 1998 as an investigator in Lviv District Prosecutor’s Office. Later he worked as a senior investigator and deputy chief investigator of the Prosecutor’s Office in the Lviv region, where he led investigations into complex white collar and corruption crimes. In early 2002 he was transferred to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, where he worked first as a Senior Prosecutor and then headed the international legal department.

    Prior to joining Arzinger Kasko gained experience in complex criminal proceedings, criminal assets recovery, and relations with law enforcement agencies as well as representation in the European Court of Human Rights.

    Arzinger released a statement explaining that “representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office note that the international legal cooperation is the present-day key area of activity, as to solve the urgent problems, in particular, to return stolen assets from abroad one requires prompt and high-quality solutions.  To improve the organization of prosecution of Ukraine in the field of international cooperation and to bring it closer to the European standards, the General Department for International Legal Cooperation was established as a result of reorganization.”

    Timur Bondaryev, the Managing Partner of Arzinger, commented that, “his appointment is a great honor and a sign of huge confidence which Vitalii will surely justify by helping even more effectively to implement important reforms in the country. We truly believe and hope that Vitalii’s appointment will let us see and experience systemic changes not only in the prosecution, but also in the establishment of the rule of law in Ukraine.”

     

  • Asters’ Counsel Joins Ukrainian Aviation Advisory Board

    Asters’ Counsel Oleksiy Demyanenko has become a member of the aviation advisory board at the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.

    The board was created and is designed to facilitate reforms in Ukraine’s aviation industry. According to Asters, “Demyanenko regularly handles high profile aviation mandates, advised the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine on implementation of the Cape Town Convention and preparation of the regulations on IDERA and authorization codes, contributed to the debut edition of the International Comparative Legal Guide to Aviation Law and the Practitioners’ Guide to the Cape Town Convention prepared by the Aviation Working Group, and acted as a local expert for the Cape Town Academic Project, a joint undertaking of Oxford University and the University of Washington.”