Category: Latvia

Cobalt has successfully represented the Central Election Commission of Latvia in a claim before the Department of Administrative Cases of the Supreme Court of Latvia.

According to Cobalt, on October 31, 2018 the Court “adopted a judgment whereby Cobalt’s client, the Central Election Commission of Latvia, was granted a favorable judgment in a case initiated by the 13th Saeima election candidate Janis Klauzs regarding the validity of the results of October 6 elections of the Parliament of Latvia. The Supreme Court’s ruling is final and cannot be appealed.”

Cobalt reports that “the claimant had filed two applications with the Supreme Court, requiring annulment of the election results and invalidation of a decision taken by the Central Election Commission. The court did not find any errors on the part of the Central Election Commission or the electronic vote counting system’s administrator. The Supreme Court stated that the election results had not been manipulated as a result of an illegal internal or external interference in the electronic vote counting system. First meeting of the newly elected Parliament of Latvia took place on November 6.”

The Cobalt team was led by Managing Partner Lauris Liepa.

Cobalt has advised Latvian hotel management company Astor Group on the acquisition of capital shares of SIA Polar BEK Daugava, the owner of the Radisson Blu Daugava hotel on the riverbank of the Daugava river.

The Cobalt team included Partners Toms Sulmanis and Gatis Flinters, Senior Associate Inga Tenisa, and Associate Diana Zepa.

Cobalt did not reply to an inquiry about counsel for the sellers.

Primus Derling has advised VGP Latvia on matters related to the opening of its new industrial park outside Riga.

The VGP Park Kekava, which offers class A semi-industrial buildings providing 60,470 square meters of lettable area 60,470 located at the crossroads of Latvia’s A7 and A5 highways.

According to Primus Derling, the firm “advised the client throughout the development process of the industrial park: in a complicated purchase transaction of the real estate whereby development of the detail planning was set as a condition precedent for the purchase, in establishing of road easements on the neighboring land plots, in development and coordination of the detail plan with the municipality, in establishing and change of legal relationships with the designers and author supervisors of the project, in construction related aspects, in establishment of the right of superficies on neighboring land plots for erection of the water and sewage pipeline for the second phase of the project, as well as Latvian law advice on the lease agreements and lease related aspects.”

The firm’s team consisted of Partner Kristine Gaigule-Saveja, Senior Associate Andis Ozolins, and Associate Laura Skromule.

Cobalt has advised BaltCap Infrastructure Fund on their acquisition of 70% of the shares in SIA Energia Verde, a biomass combined heat and power plant near Riga, from Latvian company AS Energoeco.

Closing of the transaction is subject to approval by Competition Council of the Republic of Latvia.

BaltCap Infrastructure Fund provides development capital for transport, energy, energy efficiency, and other infrastructure projects in the Baltic region. The EUR 100 million fund has a length of 20 years.

The power plant is equipped with a 18 MW HoSt Bio Energy Installations high-pressure water tube steam boiler and a 3.98 MW steam turbine. The plant produces electricity and provides heat to Riga heating systems.

Cobalt’s team included Partners Guntars Zile, Toms Sulmanis, and Gatis Flinters, and Senior Associate Elina Locmele.

Cobalt did not reply to our inquiries on the matter.

Editor’s Note: After this article was published, Primus Derling informed CEE Legal Matters that it advised Energoeco on the sale. The Primus Derling team consisted of Partners Zane Eglite-Fogele and Sintija Radionova and Senior Associate Zane Krecere-Jemeļjanova.

Primus Derling has advised VGP Latvia on the development of a new industrial park: VGP Park Kekava.

VGP opened VGP Park Kekava, which offers class A semi-industrial buildings only 18 kilometers from Riga. The total lettable area of the industrial park is 60,470 square meters and it is strategically located on the crossroads of the A7 highway.

Primus Derling Partner Kristine Gaigule-Saveja, Senior Associate Andis Ozolins, and Associate Laura Skromule advised VGP on the deal.

Primus Derling did not reply to our inquiries about the deal.

Sorainen has advised Primekss, a Latvian company in the building industry, on a patent litigation case.

According to Sorainen, “Primekss owns a valuable building-industry patent that has gained global recognition and numerous industry awards. Primekss filed a claim against a Latvian construction company for use of Primekss’ patent technology in building a warehouse. The first instance court satisfied the claim and ruled that the opponent had infringed Primekss’ patent. The judgment was appealed by the respondent. In the appellate instance the parties settled and agreed that the infringement had taken place and agreed on a fixed amount of damages.”

According to Sorainen, “the matter is one of the very few patent disputes brought before the Latvian courts. Importantly, the patent relates to an invention by local entrepreneurs, which is indeed a rare subject of IP disputes in Latvia.”

Sorainen’s team was led by Senior Associate Andris Taurins.

Sorainen Latvia has advised Estonian company Baltic Bioethanol on the construction of a production facility in the Bauska industrial park, where it will invest up to EUR 150 million.

The unit will produce second-generation bioethanol from biomass. In this particular case the raw material will be straw, and contracts have already been concluded with Latvian farmers for straw procurement. The project estimates that the total volume of straw to be acquired could amount to 300,000 tons a year. According to Sorainen, the production unit will offer jobs for around 50 qualified employees, while its added value for the Bauska region would be approximately EUR 30 million a year.

Sorainen reports that the new bioethanol production unit in Bauska will represent the most ambitious investment project in Zemgale in the past ten years and will double the amount of foreign investment in the region. Baltic Bioethanol plans to export all of the generated output and its by-products.

Sorainen Partner Lelde Laviņa and Senior Associate Ieva Andersone are working on the deal.

TGS Baltic has advised the shareholders owning 51% of the shares in SIA S.B.C. on the sale of their shares to Norway’s Contiga Holding AS, which already held the remaining 49%. Sweden’s Mannheimer Swartling and Ellex Klavins advised Contiga Holding on the acquisition.

That transaction completed the sale of the shares of SIA S.B.C. that began in 2013, when the majority shareholders, who owned all the shares of the company at that time, sold the first 49% of the shares to Contiga Holding.

SIA S.B.C. is a producer and exporter of steelwork and constructions. The company specializes in engineering, design, fabrication, assembly, supervision and construction of steel structures and buildings.

Contiga Holding is owned by Heidelberg Cement Northern Europe AB and KB Gruppen Kongsvinger AS via Nordic Precast Group AB. Contiga is a supplier of solutions in precast concrete and prefabricated steel structures and operates in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Latvia.

The TGS Baltic team was led by Partner Andra Rubene and Associate Partner Nauris Grigals.

The Ellex team consisted of Senior Partner Raimonds Slaidins and Senior Counsel Iveta Ceple.

Primus has successfully represented AS Luminor Bank in several disputes after borrowers and guarantors, unable to meet their obligations towards the bank, disposed of their properties to relatives or friends to avoid recovery measures for those properties.

In one of these cases, according to Primus, “the debtors, having learnt about the upcoming claims, sold their property first to their colleagues, who disposed of that property to the relatives of the debtors a few weeks after the acquisition. Thus, the defendants tried to create the impression that the property had been disposed of to good faith beneficiaries several times, since under such circumstances it was not permissible to direct recovery against that property. The situation was complicated due to the fact that one of the defendants was a court clerk, who had learned about the bringing of the claim before the initiation of the proceedings.”

Primus brought a claim to the court and had securities imposed on all the disposed properties and other assets of the defendants.

“The fictitious nature of each transaction of disposal and the interrelation of all the defendants had to be proven in the case. After several court sessions, an agreement on making payments to the bank was reached. The parties made a settlement, which was approved by the court,” Primus stated in a press release.  

Similarly, in another case where the guarantor had disposed of real property in parts to her daughter over a period of three days, Primus also managed to get a favorable judgment for the bank, as the court declared the purchase agreements fictitious and void.

Primus’ team included Partners Sintija Radionova and Martins Mezinskis, Senior Associate Konstantins Telakovs, and Associates Alise Veide, Edgars Pundurs, and Rolands Valdemars.

Primus has represented Novira Capital, an Estonian real estate financing and development company, on its financing of a real estate and company share acquisition in relation to undeveloped property in the central part of Riga.

The transaction involved financing the acquisition of claims from Raiffeisen Bank International AG and the target company`s shares from Austria-based real estate developer Soravia Real Estate Development GmbH, as well as the restructuring of secured claims and onward sale of the real estate to Lithuania based investment fund Capitalica Baltic Real Estate Fund I.

The work on the project started in January of 2018 and closed in August 2018.

Primus’s team included Partner Kristine Gaigule-Saveja and Senior Associate Andis Ozolins.