Category: Serbia

The development of infrastructure has been a long-standing priority in Serbia. The National Investment Plan (Serbia 2025) announced by the Serbian Government in December 2019 anticipated the allocation of approximately EUR 14 billion to major development projects to be completed by 2025. Most of the funds are to be allocated for infrastructure projects, including road, rail, air, and water upgrades.

The plan to allocate over 60% of those funds in a five-year period – approximately EUR 9 billion – to the development of transportation infrastructure clearly indicated the importance of that sector to the Serbian Government. Some EUR 5 billion is allocated for road infrastructure, including the reconstruction of 5,000 kilometers of roads, and the construction of new ones. One of the key projects in the road infrastructure sector is the Sumadija Corridor (approximately 220 kilometers in length and estimated at over USD 2 billion), where construction began in February 2020. Another EUR 3.33 billion in a five-year period is to be allocated for railway infrastructure, including EUR 1.7 billion for the first phase of the Belgrade metro project.

The Belgrade Metro Project’s official status is “Project of Particular National Importance,” and it represents the largest and most complex infrastructure project in the country’s history. Building a metro system in Belgrade has been one of the development priorities of urban and suburban public transport in the capital for many decades.

The SMART Plan of 2017 (the Transport Master Plan of Belgrade) has laid the groundwork for the development of high-capacity rail systems in Belgrade by 2033. It estimates that the number of vehicles on Belgrade road network will increase by 50% by 2033 if there is no improvement of public transport in terms of high-capacity rail systems.

At this time, the development of the Belgrade metro project is in the phase of technical documentation preparation. An FIDIC-based Client/Consultant Services Agreement was signed on July 21, 2020 between the City of Belgrade/PUC Belgrade Metro & Train and Egis Rail for the preparation of Technical Documentation for the Metro Line 1. Once the technical documentation is prepared, the project should be ready for the next stage – procuring contractors for required civil and system works, and the design and commencement of the works.

In order to create strategic partnerships for the growth of the infrastructure sector, Governments of Serbia have, over the past decade, signed multiple Memoranda of Understandings and Intergovernmental Agreements. The most recent are the Inter-Governmental Agreement between the Government of Republic of Serbia and the Government of Republic of France on Cooperation in the Sector of Implementation of a Priority Project in the Republic of Serbia, signed on November 26, 2020, defining the financing of certain projects (or parts of projects) in the Republic of Serbia (phase 1 of the Transport System of Belgrade Metro was named as one of them), and the Memorandum of Understanding for the Belgrade Metro project concluded on January 22, 2021 between the Republic of Serbia, the City of Belgrade, and PUC Belgrade Metro, and Train and ALSTOM Transport SA, Powerchina International Group Limited, and Egis Rail, declaring the willingness and intention of the parties to work together on the project.

Despite presenting the key preconditions, the allocation of funds and political will for infrastructure development are, without more, insufficient to develop this vital part of Serbia’s economy. Creating legislative and institutional frameworks to foster the planned projects is crucial. Thus, the Law on Special Procedures for Realizing Projects for the Development and Reconstruction of Line Infrastructure Objects of Particular Importance to the Republic of Serbia, stipulating expedited and simplified expropriation procedures, was adopted in February, 2020.

Since Serbia is developing a metro system for the first time in its history, a regulatory framework will be necessary. The two main areas to be regulated are, first, the safety and technical control of the metro system, and second, at a later stage, passenger transport operation. Although it is possible to regulate this area with the laws and regulations on railway, most EU countries (including Austria, Germany, and France) have separate laws for metro system and city rail, due to those systems’ different needs and characteristics.

The completion of major infrastructure projects and the launch of new ones, as well as the creation of a favorable legal framework governing their construction, will have a positive impact on the further development of Serbia’s economy.

By Katarina Obradovic Baklaja, Head of Construction and Real Estate, Baklaja Igric Tintor

This Article was originally published in Issue 8.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

The Ministry of Mining and Energy of the Republic of Serbia has recently concluded a period of public debate on a package of amendments to the country’s energy laws. The draft law that has attracted the most attention certainly is the Law on Renewable Energy Sources (the “RES Draft Law”), but there is also a Draft Law on Energy Efficiency and Rational Energy Use (the “EE Draft Law”). Serbia already has laws governing this subject matter– renewable energy sources and rational use of energy – which raises a question about what has influenced the Ministry to propose that these two areas be governed in more detail in the future.

One of the reasons for the Ministry’s actions is that Serbia has failed to reach the goal of having 27% of final gross energy consumption come from RES by 2020. There are several causes for the current failure to meet the goal: (i) current legislation does not provide an adequate level of legal certainty to international financial institutions for financing purposes, which is why investment goals in this sector were not met; (ii) feed-in tariffs as incentives were not effective enough, therefore the RES Draft Law proposes market-premium system as an additional incentive; (iii) inappropriate length and complexity of procedures for construction and connection of RES; (iv) biofuels were not present in the market by 2019, due to late adoption/implementation of regulations related to biofuels; and (v) lack of statistical data in some energy subsectors. The new RES Draft Law (and subordinate legislation – the Ministry deems that as many as 15 subordinate laws will be necessary to ensure the implementation of the new law) should create a stimulating business environment for more dynamic investment in the RES sector in order to achieve goals set under public policy documents by removing these barriers, providing a higher level of transparency, and ensuring the long-term profitability of investment in the RES sector. Once the new law is enacted, it is to be expected that investment in the RES sector, which has been gradually increasing since 2016, will speed up.

Apart from the failure to reach RES goals, another reason for proposing the RES Draft Law is to harmonize Serbian legislation with comprehensive EU legislation, i.e., the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) and Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018. Amendments to another piece of energy legislation, the Energy Law, introduce an Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan, in accordance with the EU legislation. The NECP is to be adopted by the end of 2021, and it will define the national targets in RES by 2030.

When it comes to the EE Draft Law, its purpose is to increase the competitiveness of the economy, reduce the impact of the energy sector on the environment and climate change, provide a sustainable use of natural and other resources, and harmonize Serbian law in the sector with EU legislation. The good news is that there will be a special government agency in charge of allocating incentives for energy efficiency projects and proposing such projects. In addition to financial incentives for EE projects, there will also be non-financial incentives for highly efficient cogeneration – simultaneously producing thermal and electrical or mechanical energy in the same process – and new participants in the market. In terms of energy efficiency, it should be noted that Serbia has just adopted its first Law on Climate Change.

Both drafts provide for the digitalization of procedures in their respective fields, which should simplify these procedures and allow for the adequate collection of data as well. It seems that, years after introduction of the first energy efficiency law and legislation governing the RES sector, Serbia is finally ready to allocate substantial resources to implement its targets in energy sector, especially the crucial RES sector, which is explicitly defined as a sector of public interest for Serbia.

By Ana Calic Turudija, Partner, and Ana Krstic, Associate, Prica & Partners

This Article was originally published in Issue 8.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

Under Serbian law, insolvency proceedings for companies facing financial difficulties may be conducted as a bankruptcy or a restructuring.

Two types of restructuring are present in Serbia’s legal framework. Restructuring can be carried out through a Pre-Prepared Reorganization Plan (PPRP) or through a Reorganization Plan (RP) filed in bankruptcy proceedings (for convenience sake, we will refer to both PPRP and RP as “Restructuring Plans”).

There are two main types of Restructuring Plans: a) liquidation restructuring plans, where the main measure is the sale of a debtor and all of its assets, and, after creditors are settled with out of the proceeds of the sale, the debtor is liquidated; and b) recovery restructuring plans, in which measures are implemented that enable a debtor to continue its business activities and settle with creditors from ongoing business activities, without liquidation.

Since 2009, when the major innovations of the bankruptcy regulations in Serbia occurred, it became possible to use PPRP and to file a Restructuring Plan prior to the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings. PPRPs are carried out in the early stages of illiquidity, when the trust between the company and the creditors has not yet been broken. As the name suggests, it is a plan that is submitted in advance together with the proposal for initiating bankruptcy proceedings. The most important benefit of PPRP is that, upon its adoption by creditors before the court, a company avoids the quite severe consequences that accompany the commencement of bankruptcy proceedings. Upon adoption, the PPRP represents the new agreement between a company and all its creditors.

After the introduction of the PPRP into Serbian law a couple of major issues related to the plan became obvious. First, as soon as the PPRP was introduced into the Serbian legal system, companies started to file them in significant numbers. In order to avoid bankruptcy proceedings, debtors were incorporating in a PPRP whatever measures they needed to earn the support of creditors – very often despite lacking any capacity to actually fulfil those obligations. On the other side, creditors were in general supportive of PPRPs, hoping that the plans would help them collect on their claims, and disregarding the infeasibility of the PPRPs. Consequently, a very small number of adopted PPRPs were actually implemented. Since then, however, creditors have become much more careful in reviewing the capacities of debtors before approving PPRPs, and consequently the number of approved PPRPs has decreased.

The Court manages each restructuring process under Serbia’s Bankruptcy Law, However, Serbian regulations set out only a few – and rather formal – requirements which any Restructuring Plan must satisfy before creditors are given the opportunity to approve it by vote. One of the mandatory conditions is that a Restructuring Plan must provide a better recovery to creditors than they would have gotten in a standard bankruptcy proceeding. In addition, all creditors within one class must be settled in the same manner (in other words, treating creditors of the same class differently is strictly forbidden). The Restructuring Plan contains a list of all creditors segmented into different classes depending on their status (secured, unsecured, tax authorities, etc.) and is deemed adopted for one class of creditors, if creditors who hold the simple majority of claims in respect to the aggregate claims of creditors in that class have voted for it. As a result, creditors have been given much more control over the process, while the involvement of the court is quite limited.

The Serbian market is expecting amendments to the insolvency and restructuring regulations. The most significant of these amendments will solve the aforementioned issues and shorten the restructuring process.

By Milos Vulic, Managing Partner, Vulic Law

This Article was originally published in Issue 8.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of the Republic of Serbia has, on several occasions, introduced measures aimed helping businesses maintain liquidity and working capital. These measures have included, among other things, direct subsidies worth a total of EUR 200 million in the form of loans available to entrepreneurs, cooperatives, micro-, small-, and medium-size businesses, state guarantee schemes to encourage banks to extend loans to businesses, and a moratorium on the repayment of loans which lasted until September 30, 2020.

Following the expiration of that moratorium, banks have engaged directly with clients on a case-by-case basis to rearrange loan repayment terms in order to prevent workout scenarios and, more broadly, a potential increase in NPLs. At least so far, these measures seem to have helped prevent loan defaults on a large scale. According to a report prepared by the National Bank of Serbia at the end of December 2020, the total ratio of NPLs was 3.7%, representing a moderate increase from the record minimum NPL ratio of 3.4% recorded in September 2020. As reported by the NBS, the main methods used by the banks to achieve NPL reduction are write-offs and transfers to third parties. Given the forex restrictions, transfers of domestic loans can only be made to Serbian banks and legal entities (in case of due and non-performing corporate loans), which remains one of the main impediments to initiating a cross-border sale of NPLs.

Although no progress has been made in abolishing the forex restrictions, the NBS introduced amendments to certain bylaws which will further streamline lending by international financial institutions and make project finance structuring less complex when the security provider is a Serbian resident. Namely, in January 2021, amendments enabled IFIs that Serbia is a member of or with which Serbia has signed an agreement governing their activities in the country, and with articles of incorporation or an agreement governing their activities in Serbia that has been ratified (such as the EBRD), to freely agree on repayment terms in their loan agreements, without having to observe the previously applicable requirement that the loan repayment period could not be less than one year from the date of the loan drawdown, or six months from the date of drawdown of each tranche where the loan is drawn in tranches.

Furthermore, the amendments scaled down certain other restrictions related to the provision of collateral by Serbian legal entities for foreign-to-foreign lending transactions. Namely, Serbian legal entities must still obtain counter-collateral in return for warranting or otherwise securing loans between non-resident(s) seated in the EU (securing loans between non-resident(s) that do not have their seat in the EU is still allowed, but only if the non-resident debtor is majority owned by the Serbian resident securing the loan), but such obligation no longer exists in situations in which a resident-company is guaranteeing for another resident-company that obtained loans from abroad. However, the NBS has failed to clarify which type of counter-collateral and what value would be required in these situations in these latest amendments. Overall, the current lending climate remains positive, and both domestic and foreign banks are involved in lending to both corporate and retail clients. Although major financial restructurings have not yet been seen in practice, it is likely that such processes will start rolling out once the effects of the relevant Covid measures have been fully exhausted.

Serbia’s Government also continues to improve the existing framework in various emerging areas by increasing digitalization and introducing other novel solutions. For instance, in December 2020, the Law on Digital Assets was adopted, which, when it enters into force on June 30, 2021, will include Serbia in the small group of countries that has codified rules on, among other things, the issuing of digital assets (including cryptocurrency and digital tokens), secondary trading with digital assets, the provision of services connected to digital assets, initial public offerings of digital assets, and other related issues. It remains to be seen whether being among the pioneers in regulating cryptocurrencies in Europe will bring additional players to the Serbian financial market.

Branislav Maric, Managing Partner, and Tijana Arsenijevic, Senior Associate, Zajednicka Advokatska Kancelarija Maric in cooperation with Kinstellar

This Article was originally published in Issue 8.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

The Serbian Ministry for Mining and Energy started 2021 in a busy fashion, initiating simultaneous public debates on draft amendments to key legislation in the energy and mining sectors. In the mining sector, the Ministry has offered draft amendments to the Mining Act for public hearing. The official reasons given for the reform are said to be the need to create better conditions for the development of mines, simplify administrative procedures, ensure environmental protection, and increase fiscal revenues.

The most controversial proposed amendment was to Article 4 of the Mining Act, introducing the competitive award of mining concessions for strategic resources (inter alia: copper, gold, boron, and lithium ores). Existing holders of exploration rights over strategic resources were supposed to be protected by the right of first refusal to negotiate a concession agreement with the Government of Serbia.

However, the solution proposed in the draft created legal uncertainty for the existing holders of exploration licenses, as it did not ensure the protection of their acquired rights. According to the draft, if an investor having a right of first refusal and the state fail to agree on the terms of the concession agreement, the investor would lose its exploration rights without even being compensated for the investment made in the exploration phase. 

Ironically, it was the mining investors who asked to have the investment security and creation of a solid contractual relationship with the State bolstered. An investment agreement between the mining investor and the host state is standard in many less-developed mining jurisdictions. A contractual relationship between the investor and the host state is usually an important element of the project’s bankability, as it enables the investor to have international arbitration in case of dispute, obtain protection from adverse changes in law, and oblige the host state to develop or – at least assist in developing – the infrastructure needed for the operation of the mining project. Equally, the state may use an investment agreement to impose additional commitments on the investor, such as making investments into the local community, meeting environmental protection standards, and creating additional domestic value chains from the mineral resources being mined.

The industry has unanimously rejected the initial version of the draft. Mining companies that have exploration rights and/or reserve certificates acquired under the existing legislation requested that this concept be either deleted from the draft or amended to enable them to choose whether to proceed with the development of their projects on the basis of an administrative exploitation approval under the existing legislation or to enter into a concession agreement with the Government. The new version of the draft published following the public debate shows that the Ministry has completely changed its approach on this issue. The procedure of awarding mining concessions is now limited to those mining projects where the Republic of Serbia owns the results of the exploration works.

In all other cases, the Ministry has envisaged an investment agreement which may be concluded between the Republic of Serbia and the investor in the mining project. Under the current draft, the investment agreement is supposed to cover points such as the development of missing infrastructure, environmental protection, pre-emption rights over the mining product in favor of a domestic producer, fiscal and legal benefits in relation to the project, and so on.

Most interesting here is the possible introduction of a contractual pre-emption right over raw materials in favor of domestic producers – an obvious push by the Government to build the local manufacturing ecosystem around the extraction of lithium from Rio Tinto’s Jadar project.

The readiness to entertain the requests of mining investors does not come free of charge – the mining tax will, most likely, be significantly increased to ensure that the Government will get its share of the profits from the lithium, gold, and copper projects under development.

The Government has not yet adopted the final draft and it remains to be seen what the final position on these points will be – the future of investments worth billions of euros may very well depend on it.

By Dragoljub Cibulic, Senior Partner, BDK Advokati

This Article was originally published in Issue 8.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

Over the past year, many employers have had their employees switch to working from home, since this was considered to be the best preventive measure against the spread of COVID-19 among the workforce.

When Serbia entered its state of emergency last year, the Serbian Government adopted the Decree on Organization of Work of Employers During State of Emergency, which prescribed that all employers allow their employees to work from home, where possible. Under this Decree employers could introduce work-from-home by simple unilateral decision, and many employers have continued to keep their employees working from home based on such decisions, even after the state of emergency ended and could no longer be used as a valid legal basis. Under Serbia’s Labor Law, work-from-home can be introduced only with the explicit written consent of the employee, by amending the employment contract. The Labor Law sets out a list of elements that must be included in employment contracts involving working from home, including rules on working hours and schedule, measures for supervision and quality control of the work, equipment provided by the employer or compensation for use of the employee’s own equipment, and reimbursement of expenses incurred due to working from home. The Labor Law does not allow for any exceptions, which means that the employers must also amend the employment contracts for those employees who will be working from home only temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the end of January 2021, the Serbian Ministry of Labor, aware that a significant percentage of the Serbian workforce is working from home in the absence of any specific regulations on safety for this type of work, published Guidelines for Safe and Healthy Work from Home. The Serbian Law on Health and Safety at Work does not even appear to apply to work-from-home, since it defines the workplace as a place of work which is under the direct or indirect control of the employer. However, by publishing the Guidelines, the Ministry of Labor expressed its view that the Law on Safety and Health at Work and all applicable bylaws on risk assessment and work safety measures apply to work from home, to the extent possible.

As Chair of the Labor Regulations Committee of AmCham in Serbia, I recently moderated an online AmCham panel in which member companies could hear firsthand from representatives of the Serbian Directorate for Health and Safety at Work and the Labor Inspectorate what the authorities deem mandatory and will look into when it comes to work-from-home.

According to the representatives of the Directorate, employers are required to undertake a work-safety risk assessment for each employee working from home and amend the relevant company’s Act on Risk Assessment accordingly. However, they said, the Labor Inspectorate will allow an exception to this rule for temporary work from home arrangements made as a preventive measure against COVID-19. The Directorate recommended that employers use the checklist published as part of the Guidelines to help them collect relevant information for the risk assessment from the employees. This checklist was taken from the website of the European Health and Safety at Work Agency and can be adapted by employers to adjust to their specific organization. It is also necessary to train employees on how to work safely from home. Even though this training can be conducted online, the Labor Inspectorate will still insist that the employer keeps records of it in hard copy, with the wet signature of the employee.

To sum up, in order to legalize the existing work-from-home model, an employer needs to adopt a work-from-home policy including work-safety rules, have employees sign annexes to their employment contracts, conduct formal risk assessments, and train employees on work-safety measures. Once employers start asking their employees to formally accept working from home on a massive scale, it will be interesting to see how the employers will cope with refusals, as the Labor Law does not provide a proper mechanism for forcing employees to work from home.

By Dragana Bajic, Head of Regional Employment Practice, Zajednicka Advokatska Kancelarija Maric in cooperation with Kinstellar

This Article was originally published in Issue 8.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

Serbia’s data protection authority (the “Commissioner”) recently issued a publication which allows data protection lawyers and the public at large to get a better understanding of the Commissioner’s practice under current legislation.

Serbia’s Data Protection Act of 2018 became applicable in August 2019. The law for the most part copies provisions of the GDPR. As the Commissioner only publishes its decisions online in exceptional cases, it is difficult, or even impossible, to anticipate its position on a particular issue not expressly regulated by the Data Protection Act. For that reason, the Commissioner’s Viewpoints and Opinions, vol. 6, published on January 28, 2021, serves as a helpful tool for understanding and predicting its approach.

A good number of the decisions included in the Viewpoints and Opinions, vol. 6 read as a primer on data protection law, because they restate the law’s provisions on basic things such as the conditions for valid consent and the elements of a data processing notice.

More seasoned data protection practitioners will nevertheless find useful and non-obvious pronouncements by the Commissioner. One example deals with the provisions in the Data Protection Act that might be read as departing from equivalent GDPR provisions. In places, Serbian words denoting the key concepts in the relevant provisions of the Data Protection Act do not exactly match those in the GDPR. The linguistic differences in fact reflect imprecisions in the translation, rather than the specific intent by the Serbian legislator to depart from the GDPR. Therefore, it would only make sense to disregard the translation oversights and interpret the provisions in their GDPR meaning. Indeed, the Commissioner took this approach in a decision from December 2019, explaining that the term “seat” in the law’s provision on its territorial scope should be read and interpreted as the term “establishment” in the equivalent GDPR provision. This is an important clarification – even if made public with a one-year delay – which impacts the applicability of the law to branches and representative offices of foreign companies in Serbia. Those branches and offices are “establishments” (not “seats”), but the Data Protection Act nevertheless applies.

This approach is not taken in all cases, however. In a decision of September 11, 2020, concerning the legal processing of job candidates’ personal data, the Commissioner did not favor an interpretation consistent with the GDPR. In a decision that is important due to its potentially precedential nature, it seems, from the excerpt that the Commissioner published, that the only legal bases for the processing of personal data of job candidates are compliance with the employer’s legal obligation and the exercise of official authority vested in the employer. If true, this would mean that employers cannot process personal data of job candidates on the basis of a legitimate interest or when taking steps at the request of the candidate prior to entering into a contract. The Commissioner arrives at this reductionist view by relying on a reference in the Data Protection Act to the employment laws as additional sources applicable to the processing of personal data in the employment context. A reference to employment laws also exists in GDPR Article 88, however it does not result in a similar narrowing of legal bases for the processing of job candidates’ data. Several decisions in the publication, from September and November 2019, are helpful applications of the law’s general principles and rules to the specific context of video surveillance. The clarity and comprehensiveness of the analyses makes those decisions informal “laws” on video surveillance for companies and other data controllers who consider using video surveillance but cannot find explicit guidance in the Data Protection Act itself.

The Commissioner’s publication would have benefitted from restating the statutory provisions less and reciting the facts more, because vivid descriptions of the real-life situations would help the reader to better understand data protection law “in action.” The Viewpoints and Opinions, vol. 6 is nevertheless an important contribution to the development of data protection law in Serbia. For further, faster development, making the Commissioner’s decisions public in real time, rather than with a year- or longer delay, would be essential.

By Bogdan Ivanisevic, Partner, BDK Advokati

This Article was originally published in Issue 8.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

PR Legal Partner Ivana Ruzicic has been appointed Serbian data protection representative by Coca-Cola Services N.V. of Belgium.

According to PR Legal, Serbia’s Law on Personal Data Protection “introduced an obligation of foreign controllers and processors to appoint their representatives in Serbia. Local representatives may be addressed in addition to or instead of the controller i.e. processor, by data subject, data protection authority, or another person, on all issues related to data processing, for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the LPDP.”

Ivana Ruzicic graduated from the University of Belgrade Law School in 2007. She spent nine years at the JMS Law Office before founding PR Legal in 2016, where she focuses on employment, corporate, commercial, and data protection law.

Karanovic & Partners has advised the Marriott International hotel chain on its entrance into a cooperation agreement with Millennium Resorts for the construction of a hotel complex in Vranjska Banja, Serbia.

According to Karanovic & Partners, “by this agreement, Marriott International will franchise Millennium Resorts for the next 20 years and Millennium Resort will invest EUR 90 million in the construction of a hotel complex. So far, this is the largest project of Marriott International in the Balkans and by signing this agreement represents a significant step in the development of economic relations between the United States and Serbia.” According to the firm, “the new hotel complex will include hotel Westin Vranjska Banja, five-star hotel Kralj Petar Prvi Autograph Collection, Sofka medical centre, as well as spa apartments and spa bungalows which will be located in the forest. The construction of the hotel complex will take place in four phases. Construction of hotel Westin Vranjska Banja is scheduled to be completed by April or May 2023. In the next phase five-star hotel Kralj Petar Prvi Autograph Collection will be constructed and will consist of the old part of the building dating from 1888 and of the new part which will be added. The rest of the hotel complex is planned to be completed by 2026.”

Karanovic & Partners’ team was led by Senior Partner Dragan Karanovic and Senior Associate Ana Lukovic.

Karanovic & Partners could not provide additional information on the deal.

NSTLaw has advised Amdico International Ltd. on the purchase of hospitality company HTP Srbija d.o.o, the owner and operator of the Srbija Hotel in Vrsac, Serbia, from Spain’s Eix Daurada Invest sl. The Dangubic Law Firm in Vrsac advised the seller. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The 86-room hotel, which is located in the center of Vrsac, opened in 1983 and had been a part of Eix Hotels since 2008. According to NSTLaw it has several conference rooms, a cafe & restaurant, beauty salon, parking, bike rental, and car-wash service.

NSTLaw’s team included Partner Nenad Stankovic, Senior Associate Tijana Kovacevic, and Associate Luka Marosiuk.