Bulgarian lawyer Natasha Andreeva, who heads Boyanov & Co’s Intellectual Property practice, was elected to the Bulgarian Council of the Institute of Professional Representatives before the European Patent Office (EPI).
EPI is the professional body regulating the work of professional representatives before the European Patent Office, and its Council includes members of all States party to the European Patent Convention. The Council is the principal body of the organization.
Lidings has acted as legal advisor for BILLA retail chain in the expansion of its retail chain in Moscow.
Lidings Real Estate and Construction practice lawyers conducted due diligence of the deal on the anticipated acquisition by BILLA Realty of a non-residential building located on the north-west side of the capital to set up a retail grocery store.
“As part of due diligence, identifying the main risks and conducting their assessment allowed us to offer the client an optimal scheme to complete the deal in a safe and timely manner,” commented Lidings Counsel Vadim Konyushkevich. “Considering BILLA’s business expansion strategy on the Russian market we would be delighted to continue cooperation and offer our expertise obtained through involvement in numerous high-profile privatization and acquisition projects on the territory of Russia,” Konyushkevich added.
The BILLA supermarket chain has been present in Russia since 2004, and it is expected that over 100 supermarkets will be operating around the country by the end of 2014.
The Drakopoulos Law Firm and Reed Smith advised Secure Property Development and Investment on a EUR 12.5 million acquisition of the Innovations Logistics Park in Bucharest.
The deal involved Romania, Cyprus, and the United Kingdom. It is SPDI’s first acquisition outside Ukraine, and is the first step in the company’s plan to grow and diversify its portfolio across South Eastern Europe.
The Innovations Logistics Park is a fully-let 17,000 square meter gross leasable area logistics park located in Clinceni in Bucharest, which benefits from being on the Bucharest ring road. Nestle is anchor tenant, with more than 60% of the gross leasable area. The acquisition is expected to increase the SPDI’s annual net operating income by over 60%.
Drakopoulos assisted SPDI in Romania and Cyprus, while Reed Smith advised the company in the UK.
Dentons announced that Sergey Trakhtenberg, a Partner in the firm’s Moscow office, has been appointed head of the Russian Real Estate / Construction Practice.
Trakhtenberg has extensive experience in cross-border M&A, joint ventures and finance transactions, primarily in the real estate sector.
According to Dentons, Trakhtenberg has acted as lead lawyer in a wide range of transactions, including share and asset sales and acquisitions, investment in existing or future property, construction, secured and unsecured lending (both on the lender and borrower side), workouts and restructurings of defaulted loans, and others. He has significant experience in structuring and implementing these transactions and drafting and negotiating a full range of related transaction documentation (including English-law documents). He has also conducted numerous full and limited-scope due diligence reviews and coordinated due diligence exercises by offshore counsel on cross-border transactions.
Florian Schneider, Managing Partner of Dentons’ Moscow office, said that “Sergei has led teams of lawyers on the most complex and large-scale projects in the Russian real estate market. He will be responsible for strategy to further develop Dentons’ Real Estate and Construction practice in Russia and the CIS.”
Wolf Theiss has advised Pramerica Real Estate Investors (Luxembourg) on the sale by a fund it manages on part of its retail portfolio in Slovenia.
The firm reported that the transaction was performed via share deal, whereby a company belonging to the Austrian Immofinanz Group, Stop Shop Slovenia B.V., acquired 100% of the shares in Slovenian C.E. Investicije from the Central European Prague Investment fund. The sale involved strip malls located in the cities of Celje, Velenje, Postojna and Domzale, comprising a total of over 12,800 square meters of fully let space.
According to Wolf Theiss, “the sale of four shopping centers is one of the few real estate deals which have been successfully completed since the Slovenian real estate market had been deeply impacted by the financial crisis and decreased in 2008.”
“The successful completion of the sale of the four strip malls in Slovenia is an integral element of our business plan,” says Rudiger Schwarz, director of Pramerica Real Estate Investors (Luxembourg).
Wolf Theiss assisted Pramerica Real Estate Investors (Luxembourg) with the acquisition of the Slovenian malls back in 2006/2007, before advising on their sale this month. “We are very proud of our achievements in providing continuous legal support to Pramerica Real Estate Investors (Luxembourg) S.A. in Slovenia over the last 8 years,” commented Wolf Theiss Partner Erik Steger, who was involved in both transactions. “The complexity of the deal was in aligning specific interests of both parties, after lengthy preparations and negotiations,” added Counsel Laura Struc, who supported Steger.
The Istanbul office of Baker & McKenzie International celebrated the March 8 International Woman’s Day in high style, launching a Diversity Initiative and holding its first-ever gender diversity event.
The Diversity Initiative included the launch of the office’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The committee, led by Partner Asli Yigit, will make recommendations regarding ways to retain and support the office’s female employees, will serve as a resource for colleagues who have questions or concerns regarding Baker & McKenzie’s global diversity policy, and will organize various events in support of those goals and the firm-wide commitment to embracing gender diversity in Firm Leadership; Policies; Development and Training and Metrics; and Monitoring & Reporting.
The office also committed itself to Unconscious Bias Training, a key component of Baker & McKenzie’s global Diversity & Inclusion Committee. The office explained that its partners have received training in regional meetings on the need to need to base decisions on conscious and deliberate information and ideas rather than unconscious biases, and they expect to provide similar trainings locally in the near future.
The gender diversity event was the first on the subject in the Istanbul office. Articles were circulated ahead of time on themes such as second-generation gender bias, gender diversity as a business issue, and corporate efforts to retain female talent and increase the number of women in leadership positions. There followed a group discussion focused on Baker & McKenzie’s global gender diversity policy, experiences in the Istanbul office, and ways to implement the global policy locally. The event concluded with discussing concrete ways to promote gender diversity in the Istanbul office. Proposed ideas included forming a gender diversity working group and offering unconscious bias training to all attorneys and professional staff, both global best practices.
Future events are expected to include LGBT sensitivity training.
In a statement released by the office, the organizers stated that “Baker & McKenzie considers diversity and inclusion to be an important initiative globally, and we in the Istanbul office are excited to discover local ways to both implement the global policy and support our female colleagues in their career development at the Firm.”
The FKA Law Firm has announced that the Polish Minister of Justice has appointed FKA Partner Jaroslaw Grzywinski to the State Examination Committee for conducting the Polish bar examination in 2014.
Grzywinski, who joined FKA in December of 2013, was appointed the Deputy Head of the Examination Committee. He specializes in Real Estate and Infrastructure and is a member of the Polish National Council of Legal Advisers.
The BDK Law Firm has announced that Dragan Demirovic has joined the firm as Head of the BDK Tax Practice.
Dragan joins BDK from Deloitte, where he worked for four years as a Senior Tax Consultant in direct taxation. His professional experience also includes three years at Serbian Telekom as the head of the company’s internal affairs department.
The Estonian office of the Borenius law firm has advised the Eastern Europe Real Estate Fund (EEREIF) on the sale of Telliskivi Loomelinnak to Butembo OU, which is owned by a Swedish Andren family. The value of the deal was EUR 4.8 million.
According to Borenius, Telliskivi Loomelinnak is the biggest center of creative industries in Estonia, and is located just outside the Talinn city center, where it also functions as a public space and gathering spot. The complex also has a number of restaurants and cafes, shops, and a daycare center, in addition to other kinds of businesses.
The EEREIF fund was first established in 2008 to invest in commercial real estate in Eastern Europe. In 2013 the fund began its planned liquidation, and the sale of Telliskivi Loomelinnak was the first disposal in the liquidation process.
The Borenius legal team on the matter included Partner Aivar Taro, Senior Associate Triin Ploomipuu, and Associates Mariann Sirgmets and Erki Parik.
The Russian Legal Information Agency (RLIA) has reported that the Central European Aluminum Company (CEAC) has filed a request for arbitration proceedings with the government of Montenegro seeking over EUR 600 million in compensation for losses.
CEAC, a subsidiary of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s En+, is one of the largest shareholders and creditors of the Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica (KAP) aluminum plant. According to the RLIA, CEAC claims that Montenegro’s government interfered with the investment process, causing major damages to the company and the subsequent loss of investment. CEAC also claims that Montenegro breached the agreement on mutual encouragement and protection of investment signed between Cyprus and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (which was dissolved in 2006).