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Russia’s YUST law firm, representing the Slavyanka Confectionery Plant (SCP), has successfully persuaded Russia’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) that an unnamed company was unfairly competing against it by copying its labels and product appearance.

According to YUST, a competitor was making “Africa” candy, with wrapping bearing a label similar to that of the popular Levushka candy made by the SCP, which demonstrated that it had sold the Africa candy in many regions of Russia over a long period of time, along with announcing sales over the Internet. 

YUST Advisor Dmitry Seregin noted that the competing company not only produced labels similar in appearance, but actually duplicated the colors of the Levushka candy: red, blue, and green. As a result, according to YUST, “not a specific product but rather an entire series was copied, which contributed to the similarity.” 

In its review, the FAS determined that there was a probability of customer confusion and ruled on favor of the Slavyanka Confectionery Plant.

Image Source: slavjanka.ru

The amendments of the Act on Health and Safety at Work (“Act”) have entered into force on 13 November 2015, with the exception of Article 37a which shall apply starting from 1 December 2017.

Below are the key changes of the Act.

Reducing the obligations related to passing the professional exam. The amendments increased the number of employees which determines the employer’s obligation to appoint an individual for health and safety at work who passed the professional exam. Now, the activities on health and safety at work can be performed directly by the employer with less than 20 employees provided that the employer conducts low risk business activities specified by the Act (e.g. retail trade, accommodation, financial and insurance services, etc.).

Rights of the employees’ representative for health and safety at work. A chosen representative of the employees for health and safety at work has a right of paid leave of minimum 5 working hours per month for health and safety at work activities. The employer also needs to provide appropriate technical conditions and premises for the representative to perform these activities.

Mandatory periodical testing of employees. The amendments prescribe mandatory annual testing of employee’s qualifications for health and safety work, for employees on positions with increased risk at work. For other employees, the testing needs to be performed every 4 years.

Higher level of education of appointed individual for health and safety at work. A new Article 37a of the Act prescribes that an appointed individual for health and safety at work needs to possess at least a bachelor degree, i.e. 180 ECTS credits. This Article is applicable only for employers performing certain business activities prescribed by the Act (e.g. construction, agriculture, manufacturing industry, electricity supply, water supply, waste water management health and social care, etc.). As stated above, this provision shall enter into force on 1 December 2017.

By Marija Oreški Tomaševic, Partner and Ana Vesovic, Associate, SOG / Samardzic, Oreski & Grbovic

Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev & Partners (EPAP) has announced that, on November 16, 2015, Partner Markiyan Klyuchkovsky was elected as one of the nine members of the Board of Ukrainian Arbitration Association.

The Ukrainian Arbitration Association  is a non-profit public organization interested in international arbitration. According to EPAP, “the main objectives of the Association – the promotion of Ukraine and, in particular, in Kiev, as a venue for international arbitration, facilitation and support of interest in the practice of international arbitration as a means of resolving cross-border disputes, promotion of knowledge and experience in the resolution of disputes through international arbitration, as well as strengthening of cooperation and exchange of practice professionals worldwide.”

Aequo has advised MTS on the extension of its strategic partner market agreement with Vodafone and the expansion of its scope in Ukraine. Under this partnership, the companies will roll out 3G and develop a number of new services in Ukraine already available to Vodafone clients worldwide.

AEQUO advised on Ukrainian law matters relating to intellectual property.

“This agreement with one of the world’s most famous brands Vodafone is innovative and unprecedented for our market,” said Aequo Partner Oleksandr Mamunya, “because it is the first of its kind in the Ukrainian telecommunications industry and has a number of unique features that require innovative legal solutions.” 

Fellow Aequo Partner Anna Babych described Vodafone’s arrival in Ukraine as “the deal of the year on the Ukraine’s telecommunications market,” and said that it “will foster the growth of this industry, contribute to the development and launch of new products on the market, the deployment of new technologies, and ensure high quality services in accordance with the best international practices.” Ultimately, Babych believe the significance of the deal extends beyond the telecom sector, saying, “it is also important to note that this event is a positive signal to foreign investors who plan to invest in Ukrainian economy.”

The Aequo project team was led by Mamunya and Babych, and included Associates Anton Kapitonenko and Natalia Dryuk, and Of Counsel Yulia Chyzhova.

Aequo did not respond to an inquiry about the identity of the firm advising Vodafone on the agreement.

Image Source: Radu Bercan / Shutterstock.com

Croatia’s Divjak, Topic & Bahtijarevic law firm (DTB) has advised the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) on the November 26, 2015 Share Subscription Agreement it entered into with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Mamic, Peric, Reberski, Rimac Law Firm (MPRR) advised the EBRD on the deal.

According to the Agreement, the EBRD is to participate in the secondary public offering of ZSE’s capital increase. The EBRD will subscribe for 2,400 shares, which will make it the third biggest stock-holder of the ZSE. The Agreement also entitles the EBRD to appoint one member of the ZSE Supervisory Board.

The ZSE was advised by the DTB M&A and Capital Markets teams, led by Partner Damir Topic.

The MPRR team advising the EBRD was led by Partner Luka Rimac.

Hogan Lovells has reported that the sale by BlackRock Real Estate of the Karolinka and Pogoria shopping centers in Poland to the RockCastle Global Real Estate Company has closed. The deal was originally reported by CEE Legal Matters on August 24, 2015.

The Hogan Lovells team advising RockCastle was supervised by Partner Jolanta Nowakowska-Zimoch and led by Senior Associate Agata Jurek-Zbrojska, supported by with great involvement of lawyers Zuzanna Bafia and Joanna Fidecka.

As reported previously, the Dentons team was led by Partner Pawel Debowski, supported by Senior Associate Maciej Jodkowski and Associate Jacek Jezierski. 

Image Source: Sorbis / Shutterstock.com

The Hungarian National Bank would like to incentivize the country’s banks to clean their portfolios, since the banks still hold over HUF 700 billion (approx. EUR 2.25 billion) of non-performing project loans, – a volume which represents a significant stability risk for the Hungarian financial system.

Moreover, this significant volume of the non-performing project loans limits the banks’ willingness to provide loans, which in turn slows down economic growth in the country. In order to address this risk, the Hungarian National Bank decided this October to introduce additional capital requirements for credit institutions by implementing a systemic risk buffer.

Applicable as of 1 January 2017, the systemic risk buffer will be set between 0% and 2% of the individual bank’s entire risk weighted exposure. Only CET1 instruments will be eligible as additional capital. The Hungarian National Bank will individually determine the applicable rate of the systemic risk buffer for each bank struggling with a problematic portfolio exceeding a threshold of HUF 5 billion (approx. EUR 16 million). The rate set by the Hungarian National Bank will be set in the last quarter of 2016, with the individual rate for each bank proportional to the bank’s contribution to the overall systemic risk in the domestic banking sector.

A bank can only avoid falling under the scope of the additional capital requirement if it reduces the rate of the non-performing project loans until the end of 2016. Therefore, the additional capital requirement may motivate the country’s banks to deal more drastically with their non-performing project loans (ie restructuring may not be sufficient) and simply sell them. If the banks do not succeed at selling such portfolios, the measure – according to the Hungarian National Bank – will nevertheless strengthen the stability of the Hungarian financial system.

This Hungarian National Bank measure also enhances the position of MARK Zrt. as a potential buyer, because it forces the banks to sell their problematic assets even at prices below their book value. This provision may cause the Hungarian banks to suffer further NPL-related losses before a sector-wide recovery takes hold. MARK Zrt. was established by the Hungarian National Bank in 2014 with the aim of purchasing domestic banks’ problematic NPL portfolios, thereby reducing the systemic risks in the country’s financial system.

By Gergely Szalóki, Attorney at Law, Schoenherr

ODI has been engaged by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Imola, an Italian fund managing EUR 253.4 million of assets, to represent it before the Court of Justice of the European Union (“the Court”) in the Slovenian banks bail-in case, the first ever reference for a preliminary ruling procedure initiated by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia. According to ODI, the opposing party — the Bank of Slovenia — is represented by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP. The hearing before the Court is scheduled for December 1, 2015.

According to ODI, the case involves a cancellation of the rights of shareholders and holders of subordinated bank instruments in six Slovenian banks (NLB, NKBM, Abanka, Probanka, Factor Banka, and Banka Celje), imposed in accordance with the Banking Act by the Bank of Slovenia — the Slovenian banking regulator —  on the banks for the purposes of recapitalization by means of State resources. The recapitalization involved nearly EUR 5 billion of state funds, whereas the value of cancelled rights amounted to nearly EUR 600 million. The measure affected 600,000 shareholders and holders of subordinated debt, but only some of them sought judicial protection. One of them was Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Imola with its EUR 8.5 million subordinated floating rate perpetual loan with NLB.

The firm reports that the questions referred to the Court of Justice of the EU by the Slovenian Constitutional Court focus on the legal nature of the Banking Communication of the European Commission, adopted in 2013, and its eventual binding nature for the Member States when the latter implement support measures in favour of banks in the context of the financial crisis. 

The issue of bail-in has been a pressing issue in recent years and such measures have been challenged by various constitutional courts (Austria, Ireland), but none of them in the context of the 2013 Banking Communication. A directive on recovery and resolution of credit institutions (“BRRD”), adopted in 2014, governs the bail-in of Heta in Austria as well as the announced bail-in of Greek banks, worth over EUR 25 billion. 

The ODI team representing Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Imola before the Court and the Constitutional Court is jointly lead by Ljubljana-based Partners Branko Ilic and Matjaz Jan.

Freshfields did not reply to our inquiry on the matter.

Today’s demands for information ‘anytime and anywhere’ requires more users to work on documents which can be easily transferred electronically or synced from desktop to Mac, or laptop to smartphone and tablet.

This demand has led to an increase in the accidental release of private and confidential information in published documents. Whilst emerging apps like Crisis, Crisis Covered, and Rapid Response can aid in legal crisis management, firms still need to prevent data leaks from ever taking place. 

Firms must monitor and manage information systems security and information security in order to prevent any damage to the firm’s reputation from the outset. Many employees are aware IT departments deploy intrusion protection and prevention software, and block ‘drive-by’ downloads on the network which can cause data leaks at the system level. But many employees may not be aware that the documents they email can contain sensitive metadata or ‘hidden’ data ranging from author name, creation date, modified date or edit time, comments and track changes which can harm their firm’s reputation. Data leaks can happen any time a document is emailed, but consider some of these other data leakage scenarios:

Cloud collaboration – many firms upload documents into a collaborative workspace in the cloud, making it important that your documents are cleansed of metadata before doing so. 

Improper redaction – many document authors still redact text and images using a simple masking technique by placing a black box or rectangle over text – this is not redacting and the covered up text can be easily exposed by the reader.

Embedded objects – you may not be aware that you are actually embedding an entire Excel spreadsheet into a document when you think you are just copying part. A simple ‘double-click’ on an embedded file will expose all contents of the spreadsheet to the reader. 

Document automation – law firms use document assembly tools to automatically fill in document variables in document templates when creating contracts and letters. In many cases, fields added to the document can have hidden metadata associated with them.

Data leaks are easily preventable with metadata cleaning software. The underlying technology in most metadata management applications currently on the market requires the cleaning application to open the authoring application every time to clean the document. This process can take about 10 seconds per document which will mean desktop users have to wait until cleaning is complete before they can resume working with email. Plus on the server side, bottlenecks are created as emails leaving the company are cleaned. Users could be left not knowing when their email was actually sent – effecting business critical communications.

cleanDocs by DocsCorp allows employees to easily clean more than 100 metadata types from documents at sub-second speeds which eliminates these bottlenecks. Documents are cleaned at the binary or direct file level, which does not require the application to be opened. 

There’s also a version for employees ‘on the go’, cleanDocs Mobile, which also eliminates the need to open the authoring application for cleaning. It also provides mobile users with the same rich end user experience as desktop users. 

Legal firms of all sizes need to look at metadata management software as a compulsory business tool, like any other desktop software required for day-to-day duties. Data leaks are on the rise, and security awareness, encryption policies, employer behaviour all need to be viewed as part of their risk mitigation management and planning.

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DocsCorp is a leading provider of productivity software for document management professionals worldwide. Our offices and products span the globe with over 250,000 users in 32 countries. Our clients are well known and respected global brands that rely on DocsCorp for their technology needs.

BDK has advised Iron Mountain, the NYSE-listed storage and information management company, on the acquisition of Iron Trust d.o.o. from private individuals Toma Bilic and Panagiotis Xydas. Iron Trust is one of the leading Serbian providers of archive management, imaging services, and data storage.

The BDK team was led by Senior Partner Vladimir Dasic, and included Associates Marija Doci and Slobodan Trivic.

BDK reports that Iron Trust was not represented by external counsel on the deal, and was instead guided by its in-house counsel in Cyprus.