CEE Legal Matters

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  • Gessel Adds New Tax Partner

    Gessel has announced that Dr. Janusz Fiszer has agreed to come on board.

    Fiszer, who specializes in international tax law and in tax aspects of M&A transactions, will manage Gessel tax law practice. Fiszer worked for White & Case in Warsaw from 1998 through 2011, and for the past two years has been a Partner in the Tax & Legal Department of PricewaterhouseCoopers.  

    He is a lecturer in international tax law in the postgraduate program of tax and tax law studies at the University of Warsaw and in the postgraduate international tax strategies program at the Warsaw School of Economics, and he has written over 1000 articles and commentaries on legal, tax, and financial matters for Polish professional journals and international journals. In his legal practice, Fiszer has advised on tax disputes and on a number of high-profile M&A transactions in Poland involving publicly listed as well as privately held companies.

  • Turkish ELIG Promoted Two Lawyers to Partner

    Turkish ELIG Promoted Two Lawyers to Partner

    ELIG has promoted two of its senior lawyers to Partner. Olgu Kama was promoted to Partner in the firms Corporate group, and Korhan Yildirim becomes the second partner in the firm’s market-leading Competition Practice, joining firm Managing Partner Gonenc Gurkaynak. 

    Kama graduated from Bilgi University School of Law in 2002, and received an LL.M. from Fordham in the United States in 2008. Yildirim has been with ELIG since graduating from Galatasaray University in Istanbul in 2005. He worked on several high-profile cases in 2013, including representing Turkish Airlines in an abuse of dominance investigation that Turkey’s Competition Authority reopened in September. He has also advised on antitrust matters for Ticketmaster, Allianz, Mercedes-Benz and 3M. Yildirim reports receiving the promotion “with great pride and delight.”

  • It’s getting closer!

    Twenty days until the CEE Legal Matters magazine hits the market.Twenty days for us to finish the interviews, write the final paragraphs on the stories, complete the articles and editorials, and prepare the features that will, together, form the first issue. Our writers, editors, and contributors are warming to the task, the long days of writing getting longer, the batteries on our laptops recharged more often, caffeine becoming more critical. Twenty days. We know it. And we’ll meet it. We’re committed to introducing our first issue in style, and to producing an issue that will be useful, interesting, engaging, and relevant. We have twenty days to make that happen.

    We hope you’re looking forward to it too. And remember, the approaching deadline doesn’t only matter to us. It matters to you as well. The discounted early-bird subscription and advertising offers available on the CEE Legal Matters website will expire on February 17, when the first issue is published. And remember, only subscribers to the magazine will get access to it online, and to additional premium content as well. Don’t wait. Don’t postpone. And definitely don’t forget.

    Contact us now.   

  • Dentons Appoints Real Estate Co-Chair in Europe

    Dentons announced that Partner Pawel Debowski has been appointed to co-chair the Dentons Global Real Estate Group in Europe with Partner Eric Rosedale.

    Debowski joined Dentons (formerly Salans) with his team in 2010 from Clifford Chance. He specializes in real estate finance and investment issues and was involved in structuring early real estate investments in Poland as well as working for key developers on the Polish real estate market.

    Debowski and Rosedale will co-chair the European team of what is now one of the largest real estate groups amongst leading international law firms, with more than 600 members.

    “Pawel has a tremendous following inside and outside of Poland and has the experience and relationships that will help Dentons continue to grow its profile and position throughout Western and Eastern Europe,” commented Rosendale.

  • Taboglu & Demirhan Makes New Partner

    Senior Associate Onur Ergun has been promoted to Partner at the Taboglu & Demirhan law firm in Turkey.

    Ergun has been at T&D since 2010, and focuses on M&A, Privatization, and Project Finance as well as Capital Markets, Competition and Banking matters. He graduated from Istanbul University, School of Law in 2003 and received his LL.M. degree in Berlin Freie Universitat in 2005.

  • Schoenherr Welcomes New Equity Partner

    Schoenherr has invited Ursula Rath, a Vienna-based partner in the firm’s Banking, Finance, and Capital Markets practice, into the firm’s equity.

    Rath, who served as lead lawyer on a number of prominent capital markets transactions in Austria in recent years, will become an equity partner in Schoenherr commencing with the firm’s next financial year on February 1, 2014. 

    Rath specializes in capital markets transactions (both equity and debt), investment funds and asset management and financial services regulatory. Recent achievements include leading the Schoenherr team advising UNIQA insurance group on its EUR 757 million re-IPO in October 2013, the largest equity capital markets transaction in Austria last year, and UNIQA’s EUR 500 million rights offering in 2012, and multiple large volume high-yield bond issuances for Continental, Phoenix Pharma, and Schaeffler Group.

    Rath joined Schoenherr in 2003 and was promoted to partner in the firm’s Banking, Finance, and Capital Markets practices in 2009.

  • Egorov Puginsky Defends ZAO Alcoa Metallurg Rus Employees in Criminal Proceedings

    Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners has successfully defended the interests of employees of ZAO Alcoa Metallurg Rus in a Russian court.

    The Yuzhnaya Operational Customs Office initiated a number of criminal proceedings against the employees of Alcoa Metallurg Rus, the Russian subsidiary of Alcoa, for an offense under Article 189(3) of the Russian Criminal Code related to international trade with foreign companies. The criminal cases were investigated by the Investigations Department of the Federal Security Service Directorate of Russia for Rostov Region.

    The White Collar Defense team at Egorov Puginsky persuaded the Court that the charges were unfounded. The Alcoa Metallurg Rus employees were represented by Partner Viktoria Burkovskaya, Counselor Tatyana Nozhkina, and Associate Nikolay Kazantsev.

  • Dentons Announces New European Chairman and Board

    Dentons today announced the election of a new Chairman and Board in Europe. Evan Lazar, Partner in the firm’s Prague office, was elected Chairman of its European Board. Joining Lazar on the Board are Partners Oleg Batyuk, Tomasz Dabrowski, John Flanigan, Dariusz Oleszczuk, and Andreas Ziegenhagen.

    The Board focuses on setting the region’s strategy, meeting and anticipating clients’ needs, and building the firm’s brand following the March 2013 combination of Salans, FMC and SNR Denton.

    Lazar, an existing member of the European Board and Dentons’ Global Board, was elected with unanimous support. He succeeds Francois Chateau, the former Chairman of the European Board and the Global Vice Chair of Dentons. Lazar played an instrumental role in the 2013 Dentons combination.

    Of his election to Chairman, Lazar issued a statement that, “my goal is for the firm to continue to challenge and exceed the other global elite law firms by providing the highest quality legal services and upholding our well-deserved reputation for providing valued advice to a broad spectrum of clients.”

  • Havel, Holasek & Partners Adds Two Experts on New Civil Code in Czech Republic

    The Czech Havel, Holasek & Partners law firm has expanded by two.

    Partners Filip Melzer and Petr Tegl, both experts on the new Czech Civil Code, have joined the firm as Of Counsels. Both Melzer and Tegl were members of the team of legislators preparing the new Czech Civil Code, and they will advise on the Code at the firm.

    Both Melzer and Tegl lecture in civil law for training judges on the new legislation at the Czech Judicial Academy, and both teach at the Faculty of Law of Palacky University in Olomouc. In addition, they are the main authors of the large commentary to the new Civil Code along with Havel, Holasek Partner Frantisek Korbel.

  • Freshfields Elects Michal Dobrowolski to Counsel in Austria

    Austrian Corporate lawyer Michal Dobrowolski has been elected to Counsel by Freshfields.Dobrowolski is the only CEE lawyer among the 15 associates promoted to Counsel worldwide.

    Dobrowolski has been working for Freshfields since 2006. He specializes in private equity, mergers and acquisitions, reorganizations and general company law. He also practices in the field of public takeovers and squeeze-outs in particular in the context of listed stock corporations. He was promoted in 2010 to the level of corporate principal associate. 

    According to Freshfields, “The role of counsel is the most senior legal role in the firm below that of partner. The key requirements for the role are that a candidate should have an appropriate level of seniority in the jurisdiction in which he/she works; is considered to have exceptional legal expertise and excels in providing legal and non legal contributions to ensure the continued development of the firm.”