Buzescu Ca has represented Petrol before the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority with regard to the issuance of the electricity trading license to its Romanian subsidiary.
The Petrol Group is a Slovenian oil distributing company with 469 petrol stations, including 311 in Slovenia, 99 in Croatia, 36 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and under ten in each of Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo.The company was established in April 1947 as Jugopetrol Ljubljana, and took its current name in 1953.
Dubinsky & Osharova reports that it has successfully persuaded the Kyiv Commercial Court to rule — as it did on April 21, 2015 — in favor of Citibank, N. A., and to terminate the Ukrainian certificate for the “Citibank” trademark registered in the name of Sfera Capital, LLC.
In a statement released by the firm, Doubsinky & Osharova claimed that “it is absolutely logical that existence of rights of another business entity, rendering financial services on the territory of Ukraine, to the trademark ‘Citibank’ violates the interests of Citibank, N. A.”
The interests of Citibank in the matter were represented by Dubinsky & Osharova Partner Victoria Sopilnyak and Attorney at Law Kateryna Moskalenko.
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Hedman Partners has promoted attorney-at-law Valter Vohma to Partner, thus increasing the partnership to five.
Vohma graduated from Tartu University with a master’s degree in law in 2009 and has been a member of the Estonian Bar Association since 2011. He began his legal career in 2007 at the Tamme & Otsmann firm in Estonia before joining Hedman Partners in December, 2009. At Hedman Partners he is responsible for the start-up desk, advising clients on matters related to investment and shareholders’ agreements, employee stock option schemes, and corporate law in general. He also advises clients on litigation and is experienced in private international law.
In a statement released by Hedman Partners, Managing Partner Merlin Salvik said that during Valter’s six-year tenure with Hedman Partners, he has demonstrated excellent skills in developing client relations, has flexibly adapted to new areas of expertise and has become a recognised legal expert in the start-up scene. “Valter’s addition to the ring of partners further ensures Hedman Partners’ position as a trusted legal advisor to tech start-ups and their investors,” she added.
CHSH reports that the EU General Court in Luxembourg issued a judgment on May 13, 2015 rejecting both appeals brought by airline Niki in connection with the acquisition of Austrian Airlines by Lufthansa, bringing a long dispute to an end. CHSH represented OBIB (at the time doing business as OIAG), the seller of AUA.
The General Court issued two judgments on this complex set of issues, both of which emphasized the legality of the sale: First, the question of whether the negative purchase price paid by Lufthansa constituted prohibited state aid (the ECJ ruled that it did not); and second, with regard to the merger control proceedings, the issue of the negative effects of the concentration (the judges in Luxembourg concluded this was not of relevance).
“We’re extremely pleased that in issuing its judgments, the General Court in Luxembourg entirely shares our legal opinion and it has confirmed that our analysis was correct from the very beginning,” said Hans Kristoferitsch, CHSH Partner in the European Union law team at CHSH.
“It’s a major achievement that such a large project could be brought to a successful conclusion after many years and that this has also been confirmed by the ‘highest legal authority in Europe,’” said Partner Bernhard Kofler-Senoner, who specializes in antitrust law.
The team at CHSH which oversaw the proceedings before the General Court included Partners Kristoferitsch and Kofler-Senoner, Partner Stefan Huber, and Senior Attorney Peter Lewisch.
Dominas & Partners has advised K2 LT in connection with its listing on the NASDAQ First North market.
K2 LT was admitted to trading on the market on May 6, 2015 and actual trading started on May 11. According to the firm, K2 LT thus becomes the first Lithuanian company with shares admitted to trading on the First North platform. K2 is also the first private Lithuanian company to go public in the last seven years. The First North trading platform is operated by the market operator NASDAQ OMX Vilnius.
K2 LT is a Lithuanian capital based funeral sector company that opened the first and only crematorium in Lithuania in November, 2011. The crematorium is located in the free economic zone in Kedainiai.
The Dominas & Partners Capital Markets team advised K2 LT on corporate reorganization and drafted the necessary documentation for the listing. The project was led by Partner Vaidotas Puklevicius and Associate Justina Rakauskaite. K2 LT appointed M&A International Baltics as its Certified Adviser.
Kambourov & Partners has advised Kaufland on the development and construction of its new and 52nd store in Bulgaria, which officially opened its doors on Wednesday, April 8.
The new store — based in Asenovgrad, in the central-southern part of Bulgaria — covers an area of over 2000 square meters, and includes a parking zone of 157 parking spots. According to Kambourov & Partners, “100 job opportunities were created as part of Kaufland’s investment.”
Kambourov & Partners’ Real Estate team, led by Partner Atanas Shopov, “assisted Kaufland Bulgaria through the entire development and construction of the store, including property acquisition, drafting and conclusion of design and construction agreements, and assistance through land urbanization activities, including regulatory issues and change of land status.”
Image Source: Walenrod / Shutterstock.com
Vasil Kisil & Partners (VKP) has announced that disputes specialist Andriy Stelmashchuk has been elected the firm’s new Managing Partner, a position he will take over from outgoing MP Oleg Makarov.
The change coincided with the introduction of what the firm describes as “a new corporate identity” and logo, which a VKP press release claims reflects “the firm’s development strategy and key values of the brand: a national law firm operating to Western standards and leading the changes and innovative solutions.”
VKP Senior Partner Vasil Kisil explained the new “corporate management principle” introduced by the firm’s Board of Partners: “The Managing Partner shall be elected by the Board of Partners for a definite term of office. This principle of law firm management is considered a standard for Western companies. In our case, the idea of re-electing the managing partner and introducing a new principle of the succession-based management came from Oleg Makarov. On behalf of our firm’s partners and on my own behalf, I would like to thank Oleg for nine years of his successful management of our firm.”
Makarov says he is proud of the firm’s commitment to a management transition as a normal part of business: “The succession of management to a partner who, for the first time in the history of the Ukrainian market, is not a founder of the firm but has actually grown up inside it as a lawyer and a professional is both a challenge and a chance. The strategies we have approved and the goals we pursue now call for a new vision and for changes that only Andriy can handle.”
New Managing Partner Stelmashchuk, who joined the firm in 2003 as an intern and became a Partner in 2011, is also enthusiastic about the change.: “Vasil Kisil & Partners Law Firm was created for the ages, and our new corporate brand reflects the values of our firm and its employees. We will undergo serious internal and external changes, and the decision to revamp our corporate identity corresponds to the route we have taken.” Stelmashchuk received his Master’s in Law from the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy university in 2005, graduating with honors.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.
The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. WTO role on unified principles of international valuation of customs value of goods imported or exported is conducted through Article VII of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Despite the fact that the WTO provides general guidelines for the trans-national sale of goods, domestic law remains having a huge impact on the interpretation of the customs regulation, which is of a practical commercial significance. Although an impulse to change the understanding of the custom value evaluation occurred more than ten years ago, companies, whose business is an international sale of goods often still hesitate to use the opportunity the legislator has offered.
According to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article VII (2) (a) customs value “should be based on the actual value of the imported merchandise on which duty is assessed, or of like merchandise, and should not be based on the value of merchandise of national origin or on arbitrary or fictitious values”. Often enough there is a temptation to declare customs value as the price of goods on the domestic market of the country of exportation, for example. That would make it easy at the first sight. But such an approach is too arguable, exposed to too big flexibility in its assessment. For that purpose, there shall be a concrete understanding what is a customs value, meaning, what it consists of, and as important – what is not a customs value.
Customs value assessment is a multi-level valuation of the value of the product, which is used to calculate the rate of import customs tariff and tax amount. According to the Customs Valuation Agreement, there are mandatory costs, which shall be included in customs value and optional costs, which, importing countries can choose to include or exclude from the customs value. When determining the customs value, the mandatory costs are:
The customs value shall not include the following costs, provided that they are kept separate from the price paid or payable for the imported goods:
The significance to assess customs value is not only legal but absolutely commercial –„determining the customs value is as important to the importer as the rate of duty specified in the tariff schedule for the goods, as both – the customs value and the rate together determine the amount of duty the importer must pay”. The need for customs valuation is not limited only to determining import duties under GATT but also to assess the right amount of value added tax (VAT) to be paid.
In framing its legislation, each Member State of WTO shall provide for the inclusion or the exclusion from the customs value, in whole or in part, of the following:
In order to have an un understanding, what is meant by “commissions and brokerage”, we can rely on WTO Committee on Customs Valuation Minutes of the Meeting of 27 of March, 2002 at 18, G/VAL/M/26 (May 21, 2002) (Statement of Japan, that “international sales transactions can involve one or more intermediaries known variously as “agents”, “middlemen” or “brokers” who can provide any number of services to the buyer or seller to facilitate sales, such as contracting customers, marketing products, or supporting sales negotiation. It would seem, the word “commission” is used when talking about remuneration of a commercial agent, whereas “brokerage” is clearly connected with the concept -“broker”. Both broker and commercial agent are types of intermediary in commercial transactions. Common law recognizes that “relationship that arises, where one man is appointed to act as the representative of another”, can “ vary widely in nature”.
When determining the customs value, the brokerage and agent commission fee, except buying commission, shall be added to the price paid or payable for the imported goods. The exception is the remuneration paid by the buyer to its own agent. Here it is important to point out that the exception underlines a fee paid to the buyer’s agent, which means that the remuneration paid by the seller to the seller’s agent should be included in the customs value, otherwise it infringes the competition rules.
It draws attention to the fact that the exeption excludes those occasions, when using a broker, because brokers are acting in the interest of both sides, the buyer and the seller. Therefore the remuneration to the broker, should be part of the customs value of the imports. However, if an intermediary qualifies as an agent, that influences the customs value. That shall be explained with all the costs, associated with the intermediation, including logistics, insurance, handling and conducted by the principal, the interest of an agent until the last phase of the logistics. Unfortunately, different terminology of intermediaries often leads to a situation, when it is difficult to evaluate the concept of international intermediary in sale of goods. One thing is clear – “no word is more commonly abused than “agent” .
Taking into account that we are talking about customs law, there should be a commonly agreed perception of what agency is and of what duties and rights it is constructed of. Unfortunately, the reality is that interpretation is entrusted to states’ domestic civil/commercial law, which is not only diverse but also sometimes contradicting among trading countries.
In order to have a clear understanding of legal classification of the agency, of the major significance shall be agreeing on common perception of the agency purpose. The international regulation is drawing another picture: instead of agreeing on the core purpose of the agency, countries both in domestic and international level regulate specifics of the legal construction.
One of the most commom scenarios is for a contractor to choose the applicable law, jurisdiction and/ or soft law with the most appealing and comercially favourable interpretation of the agency for the particular situation. Variety of model law provides contractors with such a diversity.
Despite the various international regulations and national laws and regulations, the five basic characteristics remain the same when talking about the agency:
The customs value shall include the manufacture costs, the cost of containers, product improvements and additions to the cost(costs of assists) of royalties and license fees, commissions and brokerage fees. Depending on the country or customs union, customs tariff and the tax amount is also affected by the imported goods, transport costs to import a port or place of entry, loading, unloading and handling charges associated with the transport of the imported goods to the import port or point of entry and insurance costs.
Use of the agency services in international trade can affect a custom value of imported goods, significantly consolidating the customs tariff and the amount of tax payable. However, to use the previously proposed business model, it is important to draw up a legally correct intermediation structure to comply with all the competition rules of the European Union.
By Ieva Urbanovica, Associate, Varul
The other shoe dropped today, as the former Raidla Lejins & Norcous office in Estonia and the former Lawin offices in Latvia and Lithuania announced their new Ellex alliance.
In doing so the three offices complete the rearrangement initiated earlier this week when their counterparts — the former RLN offices in Latvia and Lithuania and the former Lawin office in Estonia — announced their creation of a similar alliance, named Cobalt (reported by CEE Legal Matters on May 19, 2015).
The new Ellex alliance will be made up of three independent firms: Raidla Ellex in Estonia, Klavins Ellex in Latvia, and Valiunas Ellex in Lithuania.
An official press release issued by the new alliance contained statements by all three new Managing Partners. Juri Raidla, the Senior Partner of Raidla Ellex, claimed that he and his counterparts were “delighted to launch Ellex,” and said that, “the new alliance will enable clients to access the highest quality legal services and help find creative and innovative legal solutions which are not available elsewhere.”
Filips Klavins, the Managing Partner of Klavins Ellex, said that, “by bringing the top three firms in the region together we combine unparalleled experience, broad vision, with the highest quality legal services and a large number of professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds. Whether they are working locally, regionally or internationally, clients can rely on Ellex to help them access the market with utmost focus and clarity.”
Finally, Rolandas Valiunas, the Managing Partner of Valiunas Ellex, said that, “working within highly competitive markets we have to always seek for ways and synergies to deliver even more value to our clients. We are glad today to bring together the strongest firms in the Baltics, who share the same vision and values with respect to clients and the legal profession as a whole.”
FBK’s Department of International Reporting has completed a complex project for the Rossetti joint stock company involving advising the Rosetti Group and its subsidiaries on the application of IAS, conducting an actuarial valuation of pension liabilities, and performing what the firm describes as “an impairment test for reporting purposes.”
JSC Rossetti is a Russian-owned operator of energy networks in Russia, and FBK describes it as “one of the largest electric companies in the world.”
FBK’s Deputy Director of Assessment Alexander Matyushin described the project as “unique,” referring both to the firm’s development of new methods of “impairment” testing for grid companies, and to the scale of the test, which was performed simultaneously on 66 companies.
Pauline Sungurova, the Deputy Director of FBK International Reporting, claimed that: “Despite the large number of challenges facing us and the deadline for provision of services, our team has once again confirmed its ability to find the resources to increase the intensity of work.”