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Hogan Lovells has advised Union Investment on its acquisition of the Sarni Stok shopping center in Bielsko-Biala, in Poland’s Silesia region, from CBRE Global Investors for an undisclosed sum. Clifford Chance advised CBRE on the deal.

Union Investment is a German company investing in real estate in Europe, which manages 20 open funds with total assets of more than USD 26.3 billion. The Union Investment property portfolio includes more than 350 properties in the  office, hotel, retail, and logistics sectors, in 23 countries, and on five continents.

CBRE Global Investors operates in the commercial real estate sector, managing assets worth USD 88.6 billion.

The Sarni Stok shopping center in Bielsko-Biala opened in 2001. It consists of slightly more than 31 thousand square meters, and includes 73 commercial premises, including Carrefour, Media Markt, TK Maxx, H & M, New Yorker, Jula, and Rossmann. 

According to Christoph Schumacher of Union Investment Institutional Property in Hamburg, “Sarni Stok is recognized as a shopping center with a diverse group of tenants, located in a metropolitan area which holds an above-average purchasing power, making it a perfect match for our fund.”

Martin Sabelko, the Managing Director of CBRE Global Investors in Central and Eastern Europe, was similarly enthusiastic, stating that: “We are pleased to announce the completion of the sale, according to the assumptions in the business plan and fund commitments submitted to our investors.”

The Clifford Chance team that advised CBRE was led by Partner Daniel Kopania, and included Counsel Bartosz Kaniasty and Senior Associate Dariusz Gapski.

Skadden has advised the underwriters in connection with Russian retailer Lenta Ltd.’s secondary public offering by way of a placement of 35.2 million global depositary receipts, representing newly issued shares, on the London Stock Exchange, which closed March 27. 

Lenta is the second largest hypermarket chain in Russia, with 77 stores across the country. Last year the company underwent a USD 4.3 billion IPO and GDR listing on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange and the Moscow Exchange (including a USD 952 million secondary offering). 

Raidla Lejins & Norcous has advised AB Bobutes paskola, a major Lithuanian provider of fast consumer credits, in connection with its bond issue and admission to trading on the First North debt securities market. AB Bobutes paskola is the first company in Lithuania to have its securities admitted to trading on the First North market.

First North is a multilateral trading facility without the status of an EU-regulated market. It provides an alternative to businesses that wish to raise funding for growth in the capital market, but are not yet ready to enter the regulated market. The First North trading system is designed to meet the needs of all small, medium-sized, and larger businesses from all industries. For many businesses, First North can be a stepping-stone into the regulated market.

AB Bobutes paskola intends to use funds attracted from the bond issue for expansion and development of new services and products.

Raidla Lejins & Norcous advised on the legal aspects of the bond issue, trade on the securities market, and other regulatory matters. The team was led by Managing Associate Akvile Bosaite, Head of the firm’s Banking and Finance Practice Group, who was supported by Associate Ruta Balkeviciute-Maceikiene.

Wolf Theiss has advised George Butunoiu in the sale of the Restograf.ro website to Skin Media, the distributor of Nikon products in Romania, which is owned by the Perian family. Skin Media was advised by Bondoc & Associates.

The Restograf.ro website was launched four years ago, and reports 4,000 visitors/day and 3,000 unique visitors/day.

The team advising Butunoiu on the deal consisted of Partner Ileana Glodeanu and Senior Lawyer Alexandru Campean. The Bondoc & Associates team was coordinated by Partner Serban Patriciu, who joined the firm in January, 2015.

This article is powered by our friends at LegalMarketing.ro. You can find the original full article here (Romanian).

Dvorak Hager & Partners is representing Saxo Bank with respect to enforcement of claims against its clients in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Danish bank’s claims originated as a result of foreign exchange transactions involving Swiss Francs involving the sudden increase of the currency in January 2015. The firm reports that it is one of a number of international law firms representing Saxo Bank in various jurisdictions, all under the general lead of the Danish law firm Ronne & Lundgren.

As reported previously, on February 27, 2014, the Court of Appeal in Warsaw dismissed an appeal filed by former Polish Deputy Prime Minister Roman Giertych in its entirety in a case he brought against the Ringier Axel Springer Polska (RASP) publishing house — the Polish publisher of Fakt, Newsweek, and Forbes, among others — which was represented by Kochanski Zieba Rapala & Partners (KZR&P). KZR&P now reports that, on March 25, 2015, the Regional Court in Warsaw entirely dismissed the Statement of Claim submitted by former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski — with the CHAI Foundation as an intervening party — in a similar case brought against RASP, again represented by KZR&P. Sikorski was represented by Roman Giertych — the plaintiff in the earlier case.

The facts are very similar to those in Giertych’s own case. Here, Sikorski’s action involved the comments of Internet users published on the Internet portal fakt.pl below an article entitled: “Sikorski informed on anti-Semites through internet fora”, which he alleged had infringed his personal interests. He claimed that RASP, as publisher of the Internet portal, was responsible for the breach of his personal interests, in accordance with general principles resulting from the Polish Civil Code and Press Law. As part of his claim, he demanded that the comments by the Internet users be removed from the website, that apologies be published on fakt.pl, interia.pl, onet.pl, pb.pl, wp.pl, se.pl, gazeta.pl, wprost.pl, polityka.pl, tvn24.pl, zyciewarszawy.pl, dziennik.pl, polskatimes.pl, rp.pl, and newsweek.pl Internet portals, and that he be compensated in the amount of PLN 20,000.

RASP moved to dismiss the legal action in its entirety, arguing that it may only bear responsibility based on the general principles specified in the Act on Providing Services by Electronic Means, and that as it was not aware of the comments of the Internet users until the official copy of the Statement of Claim was delivered, it could not be held liable.

The Regional Court, hearing the case as a Court of 1st instance, agreed with RASP, and entirely dismissed Sikorski’s Statement of Claim. According to KZR&P, the Judgment is not final and binding.

In this matter as in the previous one, RASP was represented by Kochanski Zieba Rapala & Partners Senior Partner Rafal Zieba and Partner Anna Cichonska.

CHSH has successfully persuaded the Austrian Supreme Court that McDonald’s has exclusive rights to the prefix “Mc” and its use in the food sector as well as in relation to the provision of food and drink and temporary accommodation.  

The legal dispute began back in 2012, when McDonald’s challenged the McTirol hotel’s registration of a series of trademarks with the “Mc” component, including McBerg, McMountain, McTyrol, and McTirol. The Supreme Court’s ruling for McDonald’s reversed the decisions of the lower courts, and declared that “Mc” (pronounced “Mac”) — a well-known component of a series of protected trademarks of the McDonald’s group – qualifies as a series of marks, the use of which in the food sector and in relation to the provision of food and drink and temporary accommodation is exclusively reserved for McDonald’s. According to CHSH, what is significant in this recent decision is that “it is not necessary for the second word element following ‘Mc’ to embody a reference to food or to the provision of food and drink and temporary accommodation in order to give rise to a likelihood of direct confusion with the trademarks of McDonald’s in the protected area relating to the provision of food and drink and temporary accommodation.”

The Supreme Court explained that: “Furthermore, this series of letters [Mc/MC] […] is likely to be perceived by the public in connection with food and the provision of food and drink due to the significant number of trademarks belonging to this [McDonald’s] family of trademarks and its notorious prevalence as the root mark referring to the business of the applicant [McDonald’s]” and “Unlike the assumption of the court that heard the appeal, in this case it does not matter whether the second trademark element (‘Mountain’, ‘Tyrol’, ‘Tirol’) has a meaning that refers to food or to the provision of food and drink. Rather, it suffices that the opposed trademarks were (also) registered for these products.”

CHSH Partner Mark Krenn represented McDonald’s during the proceedings. Krenn explained that: “This correct assessment by the Supreme Court closes the final gap in a number of issues regarding the inadmissibility of the use of ‘Mc’ for other products in the food, restaurant and hotel sectors. Thus, McDonald’s solely reserves the right to any such imaginative word combination, which contains the component ‘Mc’ and which is intended to be used for this area or protected as a trademark. It cannot be ruled out that this assessment by the Supreme Court will also set a precedent for other jurisdictions, such as Germany. From the point of view of branding, this decision is also enormously significant and shows just how important it is for a company to pursue its rights, instead of allowing a brand that has taken decades to establish at considerable financial expense to be diluted.

Image source: harper kt / Shutterstock.com

CMS Cameron McKenna in Kyiv has been appointed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) as the legal advisor to the Business Ombudsman Council (the BOC), a project financed through grant funding under the EBRD Multi-Donor Account for Ukraine.

The Business Ombudsman Institution is a major initiative of Ukraine’s new reform-orientated government, the EBRD, the OECD, and the representatives of five Ukrainian business associations.  Its goal is to help protect legitimate interests of businesses in Ukraine from corruption, unlawful bureaucratic interference and arbitrary treatment by the authorities. 

Earlier, the Ukraine office of CMS Cameron McKenna advised the EBRD regarding the development and negotiation of a Cabinet of Ministers Regulation establishing the BOC.

Commenting on the appointment, Daniel Bilak, CMS Cameron McKenna Managing Partner in Kyiv, said: “We are very pleased to be cooperating with the EBRD, the Government of Ukraine and the representatives of the business community in this cutting edge project, which is a key instrument in fighting corruption and enhancing the transparency and attractiveness of the business environment in Ukraine.”

JPM has succeed in an arbitration before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, representing Atos IT Solutions and Services doo Belgrade, Siemens Ltd. Belgrade, and MS GIS Informationssyteme as claimants, against the Republic Geodetic Authority, as respondent.

The arbitral proceedings were an ad hoc arbitration conducted in accordance with the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules of 1976.

The final arbitral award was reached on October 31, 2014, upholding the majority of the claim.

JPM Partner Djordje Novcic led the firm’s team representing the three claimants.

CHSH Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld Hlawati has advised Infineon Technologies AG and GE Ventures (a unit of General Electric) in entering a strategic partnership with, and becoming new equity stakeholders in, TTTech Computertechnik AG, the Austrian technology leader in robust network safety controls, as part of a EUR 50 million capital increase. Gassauer-Fleissner advised TTTech on the deal that closed this month.

CHSH describes the capital increase as representing “one of the most significant private investment rounds in Austria’s high-tech landscape.”

The legal team supporting GE Ventures and Infineon was led by CHSH Partner Dr. Harald Stingl, supported by Attorney Bernhard Wychera and Associates in the CHSH Corporate Transactions Department.

Partner Jakob Bleckmann of the Austrian Gassauer-Fleissner law firm provided legal advice to TTTech, while Thomas Jungreithmeir, a Partner at M&A specialist firm TJP Advisory & Management Services provided the company with financial advice.