Category: Croatia

On April 28, 2023, CEE Legal Matters reported that Tarja Krehic had left the Deloitte Legal network to set up a new law firm in Zagreb. We spoke with Krehic shortly afterward to learn more about the concluded cooperation, the intricacies of her new agenda, and the plans for her firm going forward.

CEELM: To start, please tell us a bit about what exactly brought this move on.

Krehic: After almost four years of successfully leading and managing the Krehic & Partners law firm in cooperation with Deloitte Legal, I have effectively achieved our joint goal of positioning the Deloitte Legal brand on the Croatian legal market as a valuable, reliable, and trustworthy partner, recognized and appreciated by the clients. We have done a great job considering the maturity and condensed nature of the local professional legal market.

After this truly inspiring journey, I decided to move forward, to further grow my boutique legal practice, and to continue focusing on local and regional M&A, as well as privacy and overall compliance. These past years of cooperating and working with Deloitte’s top-notch strategic and financial advisors have prepared us to tailor-make teams to seamlessly fit clients’ business and industry needs, and to provide holistic advice, especially geared towards businesses looking for strategic investors, expanding internationally, and undergoing restructuring.

Besides focusing on M&A, I plan to concentrate more on supporting businesses looking for financing in the ICT and energy sector, on keeping a strong focus on the multi-disciplinary areas of privacy, AI, and overall compliance, as well as on introducing some new topics such as the immense effects of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation. Essentially, continuing the legal practice with an agile focus on local and regional clients, with project-based work and a multi-disciplinary approach through cooperation with other international law firms, consultants, and M&A advisors active in the region. Being recognized as the top-tier M&A lawyer for the last couple of years in a row, and with a track record of leading the most prominent M&A deals in Croatia and the region, continuing to focus on these areas is a natural direction.

CEELM: You’ve worked with the Deloitte Legal-affiliated team for well over three years before the split. What were your main highlights during this period?

Krehic: The cooperation has been truly amazing and insightful, especially on many multi-disciplinary deals and projects we did with the US and European Deloitte experts. Deloitte’s CE and wider international and legal teams are indeed top-tier, and we have accomplished a great deal of joint successful projects. Working hand-in-hand, as an integral part of a global consultancy, enhances the corporate lawyer’s strategic thinking and hones their truly business-oriented approach, which is highly appreciated by clients.    

CEELM: What about your new setup? What does your law firm look like today?

Krehic: As a growing boutique law firm, we are more compact and able to cooperate with other international legal and business advisors, which results in more flexibility when dealing with international clients in this part of the world, but also when assisting Croatian companies that are intensifying and growing their business to the EU, the UK, and the US. We always aim to enable and facilitate clients in a more effective way and respond to any opportunities and challenges that come along. Clients like to have the ability to tailor the teams for different types of projects, sometimes using Big 4 consultants but other times choosing boutique, niche business experts – which is actually the flexibility I am very much looking forward to.

Being able to cooperate with different M&A advisors warrants a more observant approach and dedication, focused on the specific industry and client needs – especially important in M&A deals – but also in supporting local and regional clients expanding to foreign markets. This is exactly my plan for further growth and focuses on fast-growing industries such as ICT, energy, hospitality, logistics, and the financial sector, while responding to new business model opportunities. Croatia and the region are small markets, so being able to cooperate and build networks with numerous alliances and international law firms in doing local legal work has always been my strength, focus, and an exciting aspect of my career.

CEELM: And what are your short-term plans?

Krehic: I’m currently planning a regional conference on GDPR trends with one of the world’s best privacy platforms – Data Privacy Manager by LegIT – with the aim of discussing popular new EU trends in privacy before a Croatian audience focusing on the financial industry. I’m also planning a conference on the new EU foreign subsidies regulatory framework and how it will affect US and Chinese investors in M&A deals and public tenders in this region: we plan to open up this topic with some of the leading EU and Croatian experts in state-aid and competition.

Other than those, I’m currently working on several intense projects, M&As in both the private and public sectors with strong state-aid and competition aspects, some large restructuring projects for strong European clients diversifying their regional work, and a few really interesting compliance projects focusing on privacy in the financial sector. Also, I was just in Istanbul for the 2022 Deal of the Year Award – as my team from Deloitte Legal had been nominated for last year’s sale of RTL Croatia to Central European Media Enterprises.

CEELM: Do you believe the Croatian market is one to nurture spin-offs in its current state or do you foresee market challenges initially?

Krehic: After almost 20 years of having a condensed, structured legal market, I believe spin-offs are still to be expected. We have also noticed a strong trend of having a variety of independent lawyers nurturing strong niche expertise, such as AI, compliance, finance and alternative financial products, employment, and family-related matters, without the necessity to further grow other expert areas like the law firms tended to before. I personally strongly support this trend and find it desirable, as large law firms’ strong specialties for niche products can be challenging due to an overload with more traditional legal work regularly flowing in.

CEELM: What is your ultimate goal? Where do you see your firm in ten years?

Krehic: The ultimate goal is to continue to assist truly amazing local and global clients with a focus on their expansions outside Croatia and the CE region, but also to further build up and grow in certain niche areas such as privacy, AI, and ESG. I also plan to focus back on leading the Croatian Association of Women in the Legal Profession (HUZUPP), where I have been a president since its incorporation back in 2017, as there are intensifying legal and business topics waiting for our strong and attentive involvement.

Tarja Krehic of Krehic & Partners has left the Deloitte Legal Network to set up Law Office Krehic in Zagreb.

Krehic, who is a Managing Partner at Krehic & Partners, has been cooperating with Deloitte Legal since 2019. Between 2010 and 2019, she was a Partner at Law Office Krehic & Stanicic. Prior to that, Krehic held positions at Wolf Theiss between 2003 and 2010, and at Croatian Telekom between 2000 and 2003.

“Besides focusing on M&A, Law Office Krehic will focus on supporting businesses looking for financing in the ICT and energy sector and to keep a strong focus on multi-disciplinary areas of privacy, AI, and overall compliance, as well as to introduce some new topics such as the immense effects of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation,” Krehic commented.

Croatian Consumer Protection Act authorizes qualified entities such as consumer organizations and public authorities to bring civil proceedings against traders or trade associations engaged in practices that violate Croatian consumer protection laws. Under the current regime, the competent court is authorized to (i) establish that the infringement occurred, (ii) order the respondent (e.g., trader) to cease the prohibited behaviour and, if possible, to adopt measures necessary to eliminate the harmful effects of respondent’s prohibited conduct, and (iii) prohibit any such or similar future behaviour.

The law as it stands does not allow the qualified entity to bring a representative claim for compensation of damages or other redress measures for individual consumers affected by the infringement. In other words, individual consumers can currently seek such compensation only in individual litigation proceedings. Although consumers may rely on the court’s decision adopted in collective proceedings when bringing individual actions, they are often discouraged from bringing individual claims due to psychological reluctance and negative balance of the expected costs relative to the benefits of individual action.

The current regime is now being replaced by way of Croatia’s transposition of the Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of 25 November 2020 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers (“Directive”). The new rules are not intended to form part of Croatian Consumer Protection Act (or the Civil Procedure Act). Rather, the Croatian legislator has decided to introduce a separate piece of legislation governing exclusively the procedure of consumers’ representative actions, i.e., the Draft Act on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers (“Draft Act”). If adopted by the Croatian Parliament, the Draft Act is intended to enter into effect on June 25, 2023.

The Draft Act contains procedural rules on domestic and cross-border representative actions, and allows qualified entities to file claims with competent courts requesting (i) determination that a given practice constitutes an infringement of consumer protection law; (ii) order to the trader to cease the practice that violates consumer protection law and to adopt measures necessary to eliminate the harmful effects of such practice (injunctive measures); and (iii) compensation of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage caused by violation of consumer protection law. The distinction between domestic and cross-border representative actions is made in accordance with Directive’s preamble and definitions, depending on whether or not the qualified entity is bringing the claim in the EU member state where it is designated. The Draft Act expressly provides for the jurisdiction of commercial courts, which is being justified by the nature of the parties to proceedings, i.e., that the claimant would typically be a consumer association while the respondent would either be a trader or a trade association. With regard to the venue, the Draft Act allows claimants to bring actions before the courts of respondent’s registered seat or alternatively before courts of place where the infringement was committed or could have been committed.

In order to ensure the opportunity for redress measures, the Draft Act provides for an opt-in mechanism requiring consumers to explicitly express in writing their wish to be represented by the qualified entity in the representative action, except in cases of injunctive measures (either definitive or provisional) that the qualified entity may request without consumers’ opt-in. When filing the representative claim, the qualified entity is authorized to request compensation of damages only for those consumers who have opted in for representation up to the conclusion of the main hearing. Furthermore, the Draft Act lays down the rules allowing the qualified entity to require consumers who have opted in to pay an entry fee for their participation in the representative action. The Draft Act sets the limit for the above symbolic entry fee to maximum 5% of the value of claim for compensation, but no more than EUR 70,00.  

Croatian legislator has also made use of the opener clause contained in Article 8(4) of the Directive by allowing the qualified entity to seek injunctive measure only after it has entered into consultations with the trader concerned with the aim of having that trader cease the infringement. Specifically, before filing the representative claim, the qualified entity must provide a prior written warning to the trader, notifying the trader that it would file a representative claim if the trader does not cease infringement. However, the Draft Act allows the trader a somewhat longer period than the Directive to bring the infringement to an end, since the qualified entity is authorized to bring the claim before the competent court only after expiry of 30 days following the delivery of the notice to the trader. Filing a representative claim before the expiry of the above 30-day deadline would result in such claim generally being considered as ineffective to confer jurisdiction on the court, and the court would be required to dismiss it.

With regard to Directive’s requirement to ensure procedural expediency, the Draft Act provides for the court’s duty to hold a preliminary hearing no later than 30 days after receipt of respondent’s statement of response or after expiry of the deadline to provide a statement of response, while any decision(s) on interim measure(s) must be rendered and dispatched to the parties within 30 days from the preliminary hearing. In addition, the appellate court must decide and dispatch its decision on appeal no later than 30 days from the date of receipt of the appeal.

During consultations in the legislative process, Croatian Supreme Court (whose representatives were involved in the working group on the Draft Act) articulated the need to allow the review of fairness of redress settlements, which is why the Croatian legislator decided to make use of the opener clause contained in Article 11(2) of the Directive and extended courts’ jurisdiction to also assess the fairness of settlements in representative claims. The rules of civil procedure require Croatian courts to assess whether the settlement proposed by the parties is in line with mandatory rules and rules of public morals. With entry into force of the Draft Act, courts will also need to assess whether the proposed settlement is fair and will not allow the conclusion of settlements that do not satisfy this condition.

When laying down rules on penalties for failure or refusal by a respondent to comply with an injunctive measure, obligations relating to disclosure of evidence, or obligations to inform the consumers on any final decisions on injunctive measures, redress measures, or settlements, the Croatian legislator opted for daily fines which are determined by the competent court on a case by case basis, depending on the gravity of violation of consumers’ rights.

The Draft Act ensures that the final decision of the court concerning the existence of infringement harming collective interests of consumers can be used by parties to the proceedings and interested parties as evidence in the context of any other action before Croatian courts to seek redress measures (i.e., compensation of damages) against the same trader for the same practice. Although the parties may use the operative part of judgment as evidence of existence of infringement in other proceedings against the same trader, any facts established in the reasoning of the decision will be assessed by the court in such other proceedings on a case by case basis, i.e., the reasoning of court’s decision on representative claims is not binding for any other Croatian court.

In a nutshell, although the Draft Act significantly improves the position of consumers affected by the infringement of any area of consumer law set in Annex 1 of the Directive, it also brings some good news for potential defendants by providing for an opt-in mechanism in damages proceedings, instead of including by default all consumers on whose behalf the qualified entity decided to bring the action.

By Iva Basaric, Partner, and Lovro Klepac, Senior Associate, Babic & Partners

New amendments entered into force in relation to the Croatian land registry legislation.

This article will touch upon the three most interesting amendments from the authors’ point of view: (i) documents based on which registration is sought must be in typewritten form, (ii) applications for land registry entries can only be submitted electronically by attorneys and notaries, and (iii) registration application based on a priority rank annotation can only be submitted by notaries and by the placement of the original decision in notary’s escrow.

In Croatia, land registers are public records of the legal status of real properties. All property rights (ownership, easement, building right, servitude, and mortgage) and other rights or facts with respect to a certain real property are entered in the land registry. The land registry is regulated by the framework Land Registry Act. The Act entered into force in 2019 and was amended in 2022. The new amendments entered into force on 10 November 2022 and 10 February 2023, respectively.

According to one of the amendments, all documents dated 10 November 2022 or later will have to be in typewritten form (e.g., written or typed using a computer) in order for the court to grant registration of a certain property right. For example, for registration of ownership to be granted, the applicant will have to execute a sale and purchase agreement that has been written on a computer. The applicant will no longer be able to write an agreement by hand or fill in a standard template published in the Official Gazette, and then request registration based on such an agreement. While it is not standard practice in conveyancing and other property transactions to have agreements that are handwritten or in the form of a template, they still do exist.

The majority of the population in Croatia, namely 63% according to the 2021 Eurostat, has at least basic overall digital skills. Therefore, it is safe to assume that at least 63% of the Croatian population is able to meet this basic requirement and draft a sale and purchase agreement on a computer. However, for the remaining 27%, the agreements will have to be drafted by third parties, ideally legal practitioners.

Not only will the agreements have to be drafted by legal practitioners, but it is also imperative as of 10 February 2023 that all applications for entries in the land registry be submitted electronically by notaries or attorneys. Thus, applications can no longer be submitted personally, sent by post, or delivered by individuals or legal entities. All such persons must hire an attorney or a notary as their intermediary to apply for a land registry entry. This does not mean that the notary or attorney will review the application and verify whether it is sufficient for registration, nor will the notary or attorney become a proxy/representative of such an applicant. They will solely submit the application online. The attorneys and notaries should bear in mind the scope of this obligation when limiting their liability to the reasonable expectations of such clients.

The attorney’s costs for drafting a land registry application are specified in s. 19 of the Attorney’s Tariff and are based on the percentage of the value of the agreement. However, the costs for the sole submission of an already prepared application have not yet been provided for in the official Attorney’s Tariff. On the other hand, the notary’s costs for application submission, e.g. registration of ownership, amount to EUR 10.64, although it seems that notaries are seeking an increase in the respective fee. Lower fees for applicants are one of the reasons for introducing obligatory electronic applications as all electronic applications are charged 50% of the standard court fee. When calculating the amount of the court fee increased by the notary’s costs, the difference is minimal. In case the notary’s costs are further increased, the difference will become insignificant or even obsolete.

Digital land registry is and remains the prime goal for the Croatian real estate practice. However, the question is whether this goal will be achieved to the detriment of the general public and at the cost of the right to free access to land registry courts. In 2021 alone, there were 589,496 land registry cases submitted to the land registry courts. If only half were submitted personally by owners or other stakeholders of the properties, a substantial amount of work would be transferred to attorneys and notaries, at the cost of such individuals/legal entities. Not only would this affect private individuals and legal entities, but also notaries and attorneys, as well as their scope of work.

Legal entities and private individuals will potentially be able to submit applications personally once digitalisation of the justice department reaches a viable level. However, it is not evident when this can be expected. Thus, until then, the general public will only have access to land registry entries via intermediary legal practitioners – attorneys and notaries.

The third noteworthy amendment relates to the annotation of the priority rank. One can apply, again via an attorney or notary, for a priority rank annotation on their real property. Such annotation would keep a certain priority rank for up to 1 year, and within such a period the property could be sold or encumbered with the priority rank of the respective annotation. The application for the new registration of ownership or other encumbrances has to be accompanied by the original decision based on which the annotation was granted. From now on, the respective application can only be submitted by a notary public. Even attorneys are excluded from the option to request this application. Once submitted, the original decision based on which the annotation was granted must be deposited in the notary’s escrow. While escrow has been put to good use, it has never been specifically required for any property transaction. New rules of the land registry now require the applicants to contract an escrow with a notary in simple land registry procedures. As with other applications, the cost for this application is a sum of the court fees, the notary’s costs for the application, and now the notary’s costs for the escrow which can be and oftentimes are substantial.

In conclusion, the land registry is being increasingly digitalized, which is a most welcome initial effort, but it is also becoming more expensive, complex, and almost strictly professional. It remains to be seen in practice what the new amendments will result in and whether the goals set therewith will be met by restricting the general public from accessing the land registry altogether.

By Sanja Novoselić, Attorney, Divjak Topic Bahtijarevic & Krka

The Croatian office of Peterka & Partners opened its doors in Zagreb on March 1, 2023, with the addition of Attorney At Law Anja Haramija, formerly of Buterin & Partners, who will lead the firm’s Croatian operations.

“Our expansion into Croatia is an important step for us as we continue to grow and enhance our presence in the CEE region,” commented Peterka & Partners Managing Partner Ondrej Peterka. “We are committed to providing our clients with high-quality legal services across the entire CEE region and we believe that our new office in Zagreb will help us achieve this goal.”

Haramija is a banking and finance, commercial law, and corporate law specialist. Before joining Peterka and Partners, Haramija spent almost four years with Buterin & Partners. Prior to that, she spent almost two and a half years with Zupic & Partners as an Associate.

“I am thrilled to be leading the Peterka & Partners new office in Zagreb,” added Haramija. “We are excited to be able to increase the regional synergies within the Peterka & Partners group and to provide our clients with the best possible legal advice and solutions.”

“Within the Peterka & Partners organization, the Zagreb office will become a single point of contact for the coordination of legal services for the former Yugoslavia, and the ninth Peterka & Partners office in the CEE region,” the firm announced.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated for accuracy on April 19, 2023.

Croatia’s labor market is experiencing an intense early 2023, as a new set of various amendments – including regulations prohibiting retail work on Sundays and public holidays – is about to take effect, according to Babic & Partners Partner Marija Gregoric.

“At the end of 2022, Croatia made significant amendments to its employment act, which went into effect in January 2023,” Gregoric begins. “These changes introduced several important novelties in employment law, but have recently been overshadowed by the amendments made to the commerce act in March 2023, which have prohibited retail businesses from opening for trade on Sundays and public holidays.”

“We anticipate that these amendments will have an impact on the Croatian labor market,” Gregoric explains. “The proclaimed goal of these changes is to improve work-life balance and provide protection for female employees, who make up the majority of retail workers.” The new law imposes a general ban, she notes, “with two exceptions. First, the ban will not apply to specific exempted stores, such as marketplaces, fairs, stores within train stations and airports, museums, hotels, and hospitals. Second, the retailers can select up to 16 Sundays throughout a year as working days.”

According to Gregoric, this controversial law has been debated for decades: “historically, there have been three attempts to introduce similar legislation since 2004 but, each time, the constitutional court annulled it, finding it overburdened retail businesses and was disproportionate to the goal it was designed to achieve.” On top of that, according to her, the measure is also politically contentious. “The background to this law suggests that the Catholic Church is trying to influence the government to make Sundays non-working days in a traditionally Catholic country.”

Gregoric says that the new law might face some hurdles when implemented. “The law is unclear on some practical issues, such as whether the rule of a maximum of 16 working Sundays a year applies to individual stores or retailers. For example, if the ban is applied by store, there could be a situation where the employees are shifted between stores and work more than the permitted 16 Sundays, which would go against the proclaimed purpose of the new law.” She also highlights that “the law could motivate retailers with similar stores in neighboring locations to make arrangements not to work on the same Sundays, which in turn may potentially raise concerns under competition law.”

“Businesses are heavily against this law and have criticized it, claiming that it will effectively halt consumption growth and result in a decline in GDP and redundancies due to a surplus of employees,” Gregoric continues. “Businesses have announced their intention to file a constitutional appeal. They are also grappling with the issue of scheduling work and are already preparing for potential redundancies or shifting their workforce.”

Savoric & Partners has advised the Printec Group on its acquisition of NeoInfo from Igor Vukmirovic, Ivan Vidovic, and Jakov Kondza. Bozic and Partners advised the sellers.

The Printec Group is a provider of transaction automation solutions in Central and Eastern Europe.

NeoInfo specializes in custom engineering and development of enterprise software solutions for businesses. According to Printec, NeoInfo’s “Fiscal ECR solution is certified and already available in eight countries. Through established native cloud and product-oriented services, it supports more than 10,000 clients with core business solutions.”

The Savoric & Partners team included Partner Nina Radic Kuzik and Senior Associate Nives Kolonic.

The Bozic and Partners team included Partner Marijana Bozic Ivic and Junior Partner Josip Peric.

Savoric & Partners has advised Croatian private equity fund Feelsgood on its EUR 1 million investment in GameBoost operator Global Gaming Services.

According to Savoric & Partners, Feelsgood, together with Fil Rouge Capital, co-invested EUR 2 million in equal proportion in Global Gaming Services.

Global Gaming Services is a Hrvatsko Zagorje-based company and its GameBoost platform enables users to buy and sell gaming services.

Savoric & Partners previously advised Feelsgood on its EUR 600,000 investment in Zagreb-based educational technology company Vidi-To (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on February 20, 2023).

The Savoric & Partners team was led by Partner Mia Lazic and included Senior Associate Nives Kolonic.

Savoric & Partners could not provide further information on the deal.

A massive government bond program, an exciting local start-up exit to Google, and several recent and upcoming legislative updates are high on Croatian lawyers’ agendas, according to Vukmir & Associates Managing Partner Tomislav Pedisic.

“The Republic of Croatia has recently issued bonds with a guaranteed 3.25% interest, in an effort to raise awareness of securities trading,” Pedisic begins. “This major endeavor on the part of the government was a big success – with about 45,000 individual citizens subscribing to the program, to the tune of EUR 1.35 billion – followed by a EUR 515 million institutional investor round.” According to him, the bonds, which stand to mature by March 2025, offer an excellent interest rate. “The next best interest rates, offered by banks, currently stand at 0.45%, so it is pretty obvious why this was so alluring to such a high number of people.”

Furthermore, Pedisic reports an exciting move in the Croatian start-up sector. “Recently, it finally became public that Google acquired Photomath, a mathematical equation-solving application, from a local start-up called Phootomath, which is itself a spin-off of another domestic company, Microblink.” The driving force behind Photomath and Microblink is Damir Sabol, a serial entrepreneur and known figure within the Croatian start-up community. As Pedisic reports, the Photomath sale was “recently cleared by regulators in the US and the deal is currently being vetted by EU regulators. It is expected that, if everything goes well, the clearance of the EU regulator will be issued by the end of the month. This latest transaction confirms Croatia’s status as the leading technology hub in the immediate region and a serial producer of success-story tech companies,” he says.

Turning to legislative updates, Pedisic provides an update on the transition efforts of companies, following the switch from HRK to EUR at the beginning of the year. “While it was initially envisaged that both stock companies and LLCs would have a limited period to make the conversion of their share capital to euros, in terms of amending their incorporation documents, some amendments were recently introduced.” According to him, such a vast administrative transition represented a massive cost point, especially for SMEs, which led to a legislative change that allowed for LLCs to “only have an obligation to adjust their documentation in case of changes to their incorporation documents or status changes – for example, carve-outs, mergers, and share capital changes – as opposed to having to do it within a strict window of time.”

Finally, Pedisic points to several upcoming legislative tollgates on the EU level that apply to Croatia. “With the recently passed Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, somewhat of an overhaul of the European digital landscape took place,” he says. These acts stand to change how providers of digital services such as search engines and online platforms, and in particular gatekeeper online platforms – digital platforms with a systematic role in the internal market that function as bottlenecks between businesses and consumers – like Amazon or Google, operate and report on their compliance. “This will surely lead to a massive uptick of associated work for tech-law-focused law firms,” he notes.

“Not to mention the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive which entered into force recently,” Pedisic continues, saying the CSRD requires a number of large companies as well as listed SMEs to “comply with the EU rules about social and environmental information that companies need to report and to follow the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, which will be adopted during 2023. The first reports will be integrated into the 2024 financial year,” he explains, “meaning that we will see the fruits of these labors in early 2025.”

Miskovic & Miskovic has advised joint agents Erste & Steiermaerkische Bank, OTP, Privredna Banka Zagreb, Raiffeisen Bank, and Zagrebacka Banka and co-arranger Hrvatska Postanska Banka on the Republic of Croatia’s EUR 1.85 billion retail bond issuance.

According to Miskovic & Miskovic, out of the total EUR 1.85 billion, “approximately EUR 1.35 billion was allocated to retail investors and EUR 500 million to institutional investors.”

The Miskovic & Miskovic team included Partners Pavo Miskovic and Iva Miskovic and Lawyers Hana Fiala and Vanda Frcko.