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Raidla Ellex and Valiunas Ellex have advised Laurus Properties on its acquisition of the Baltic commercial real estate portfolio from Geneba Properties N.V. According to Raidla Ellex, the portfolio consists of 42 commercial buildings, mostly consisting of the Baltic branches of SEB.

Laurus is a joint venture established between Northern Horizon and the clients of Partners Group to invest into and manage the commercial property in the Baltics and Gdansk, Poland. 

The Raidla Ellex team in Estonia was led by Partner Martin Triipan and included Associates Alla Kuznetsova and Martin Maesalu and Lawyer Kaspar Kolk. 

The Valiunas Ellex team in Lithuania was led by Partner Tomas Milasauskas, Senior Associate Akvile Bieliauskaite and Associate Donata Montvydaite.

Editor’s Note: After this article was published COBALT announced that it advised Geneba Properties on the deal. The firm’s team consisted of Partner Gatis Flinters and Associate Marija Berdova in Latvia, Senior Associate Nerijus Jurkus in Lithuania, and Partner Aivar Taro and Senior Associate Triin Ploomipuu in Estonia.

After one year as a Senior Lawyer at Turk Telekom, Turkish lawyer Ilke Ozun Deniz has accepted the offer to become Head of Legal Affairs at Edenred Turkey, the employee benefits provider, which, among other things, provides meal cards and vouchers for over 600,000 employees of 24,000 corporate customers across Turkey.

Deniz, who received her Bachelor of Laws degree from Bilkent University in 2006, began her legal career with two years as an intern at the Eryurekli & Fidan law firm in Istanbul before joining the Serap Zuvin Law Offices in May 2009, where she stayed until moving in-house with Avea in 2011. She joined Turk Telekom last spring.

When contacted by CEE Legal Matters, Deniz explained that, “I made this move because I knew that as head of legal I would have the opportunity to work together with the C-level team and have direct and significant influence on the business of the company by providing legal and business advice at the same time. This is an attractive yet challenging role, since I will be responsible for all the legal matters regarding a global and well-known company.”  

Cobalt has advised Nets Holding A/S on its EUR 230 million acquisition of Nordea Merchant Acquiring from Nordea Bank AB (Sweden).

Nordea Merchant Acquiring enables corporate customers to accept card payments at point-of-sale and online. 

Nets Holding operates under the Teller brand, which is a Nordic provider of international card acceptance. Teller acquires international payment cards in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and a number of other European countries. Nets is the result of the merger of the Danish company PBS Holding and the Norwegian company Nordito AS (Teller and BBS).  

According to Cobalt, the firm “conducted an in-depth legal due diligence in Latvia and Lithuania, reviewed the share acquisition and other transaction documents, advised on the structuring of the transaction, and provided other legal support to the client on all related matters.” The firm’s team was led by Partner Elijus Burgis in Lithuania and Specialist Counsel Andrejs Lielkalns in Latvia.

A spokesperson told CEE Legal Matters that Cobalt was unaware which firm had represented the sellers on the deal.

Stratulat Albulescu has assisted World Class Romania S.A., in its acquisition of a competitor, Club Sport Fitness Center MV S.R.L. The Ijdelea law firm advised the seller — private entrepreneur Richard Pierre Thomas — on the acquisition, which was completed on March 24, 2016.

World Class Romania is currently held by the Polish private equity investment fund Resource Partners, and it has been operating in the Romanian market since 2000. It currently has a network of 19 fitness centres in Bucharest, Timisoara, and Cluj-Napoca, and it registered a revenue of EUR 9.6 million in 2014.

For its part, Club Sport Fitness Center operates a franchise of 9 fitness centres in Bucharest and other Romanian cities under the Club Moving and Moving Express brands.

According to Stratulat Albulescu, it was involved in all aspects of the transaction, “including the negotiation of the term sheet, preparation of the due diligence report, drafting of the transaction documents, as well as [providing] assistance in the negotiation process and completion of the transaction.” The firm’s team was also involved in the financing component of the transaction, consisting of “the review and negotiation of the financing documentation put in place by two major credit institutions established in Romania.”

The Stratulat Albulescu team was led by Partners Silviu Stratulat and Alexandra Radu, working with Partner Andrei Albulescu, Senior Associate Cristina Man, and Associates Ana Chira, Andrei Balus, and Cristiana Ditoiu. In 2014, while still with Traila, Stratulat, Almasan, Albuescu (which broke up in January of this year (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on January 15, 2016), Partner Silviu Stratulat also advised World Class Romania on its takeover of franchisee World Class Timisoara (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on September 29, 2014).

The Ijdelea team advising Richard Pierre Thomas on World Class Romania’s recent acquisition was led by Managing Partner Oana-Alexandra Ijdelea.

Linklaters has advised Rosneft (acting via its wholly-owned subsidiary RN-Razvedka i Dobycha) on its signature of a binding agreement to sell its 29.9% participatory share in its Taas-Yuryakh Neftegasodobycha subsidiary to a consortium of three Indian companies: Oil India, Indian Oil and Bharat Petroresources.

Taas-Yuryakh Neftegasodobycha operates one of the largest oil and gasfields in eastern Siberia.

The document was signed by Rosneft Chairman of the Management Board Igor Sechin, Oil India Limited Chairman of the Board of Directors Upendra Singh, Indian Oil Corporation Chairman of the Board of Directors Balasubramanian Ashok, and Bharat Petroresources Limited Managing Director Raji Kumar in the presence of the Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan.

According to Linklaters, “the document allows the Indian companies’ consortium to enter into the joint venture established by Rosneft and BP on the basis of Taas-Yuryakh Neftegasodobycha. Rosneft will retain a majority stake in the JV. The transaction will be closed after set of condition precedents are accomplished and Rosneft’s Board of Directors approval is obtained.”

The Linklaters team was led by Corporate Partner Grigory Gadzhiev and included Associates Kirill Donskikh and Maxim Solomin along with firm lawyers in London, Brussels, China, and Singapore.

Linklaters did not reply to inquiries about the law firm or firms advising the members of the Indian consortium.

Arzinger reports that it is successfully representing Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits (formerly Belvedere SA) in the pending bankruptcy case of its Ukrainian subsidiary, TOV Belvedere Ukraine.

According to Arzinger, “after a long trial attended by numerous media, diplomatic, and business associations representatives, the High Commercial Court of Ukraine — in its decision of March 22, 2016, confirmed the illegality of an auction for corporate rights in two Ukrainian liquor factories in the Cherkassy region of Ukraine, which led to the sale of a valuable alcoholic beverage business for about UAH 200000 [approximately EUR 6800], and which Marie Brizard alleged to be a corporate raid.”

Arzinger released a statement quoting Stephane Laugery, Legal Director and Corporate Secretary with Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits, as saying: “We are truly impressed by the professionalism and an extreme level of commitment being shown in our case by Arzinger’s team headed by Timur Bondaryev, Managing Partner, and including Aurelien Mousset, French Desk ?ounsel, Anton Molchanov, Senior Associate with dispute resolution and R&I practices, and Tetyana Slabko, Assistant Lawyer. Today’s decision of the High Economic Court of Ukraine marks an important step in our search for justice in Ukraine. It marks, we hope, the beginning of the restoration of our factory in the Cherkasy region so that we can re-start our business in Ukraine as committed foreign investors. This is what we sincerely hope and we thank all those who are standing by us in this dispute. I can surely recommend Arzinger as a legal counsel for any similar dispute in Ukraine involving a foreign investor looking for protection and clear legal advice.”

Taylor Wessing Bratislava has won Slovakia’s Via Bona Award in the category of “Responsible Small or Medium Sized Enterprise in Slovakia.” The award ceremony took place at the Refinery Gallery in Bratislava on March 21, 2016. Slovakian President Andrej Kiska was guest of honor at the event, and congratulated Taylor Wessing Partners Radovan Pala and Andrej Leontiev personally.

According to Taylor Wessing, the Via Bona Award, organized by the Pontis Foundation, is given out in seven categories. The firm reports that an independent jury, consisting of representatives from the business, government, NGO, and education communities, selected the winners from 75 applications on the basis of the number of nominations and individual presentations. The purpose of the award, according to Taylor Wessing, “is to honor enterprises and institutions going beyond their legal duties by caring for their employees, helping the community in which they operate, behaving responsibly towards the environment and dealing with socially difficult topics.”

RTPR Allen & Overy has advised Romania’s Regina Maria healthcare network on the acquisition of the Ponderas Hospital in Bucharest. D&B David si Baias — the Romanian firm associated with PwC — advised the selling doctors who founded the hospital: Catalin Copaescu, Alina Ambrozie, Daniela Godoroja, Mihai Godoroja, and Ana Maria Pascu. The transaction remains subject to approval by the Competition Council.

According to RTPR Allen & Overy, Ponderas Hospital is the only Center of Excellence in Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery in Eastern Europe that has both European and American accreditation. 

The RTPR Allen & Overy team that advised Regina Maria consisted of Managing Partner Costin Taracila, Senior Associate Roxana Ionescu, Associate Andrei Mihul, and Junior Associate Monica Marian.

The D&B David si Baias team was led by Partner Anda Rojanschi, supported by Associate Paul Farca. 

PwC provided financial advice to the sellers as well, with EY serving as financial advisors to Regina Maria.

RTPR Allen & Overy has also recently advised Regina Maria on the lease of space for a new private hospital to be built in Cluj-Napoca (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on March 21, 2016), and last year the firm advised the healthcare network on the lease of space in the Charles de Gaulle Plaza office building in Bucharest (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on March 19, 2015), and advised on the sale of a majority stake in Regina Maria by Advent International Corporation to Mid Europa Partners (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on August 5, 2015 and covered more extensively in the Inside Out feature of the December 2015 issue of the CEE Legal Matters magazine).

Sorainen’s Belarus office has advised Facebook, Inc. on its acquisition of Masquerade Technologies, Inc., a Belarus-based developer of the popular face-swapping app MSQRD, recently ranked as top mobile application in App Store across more than 60 countries of the world. Primary adviser to Facebook was Fenwick & West LLP.

Sorainen provided limited due diligence of the target and advised on local aspects of the transaction. The firm’s team consisted of Partners Kiryl Apanasevich and Maksim Salahub and IP Associate Nadezhda Fomenok, among others.

Although Sorainen said it was unable to identify the sellers or their counsel on the deal, the founders of Masquerade Technologies were Eugene Nevgen, Sergey Gonchar, and Eugene Zatepyakin, and both Gagarin Capital and Yuri Gurski were reported to have invested in the start-up.

Editor’s Note: On April 6, 2016, Revera informed CEE Legal Matters that it had advised MSQRD on the deal. The firm’s team consisted of Head of Corporate Practice Helen Mourashko, Head of IT Sub-practice Ulyana Karpekina, and Managing Partner Dmitry Arkhipenko.

Tark Grunte Sutkiene has announced that its competition team has obtained “unconditional permission” from competition and financial market authorities for Swedbank’s 2015 acquisition of a part of Danske Bank’s Latvian and Lithuanian retail banking businesses and part of its Lithuanian leasing business (reported by CEE Legal Matters on September 28, 2015).

According to a TGS statement, the firm “advised Swedbank in all stages of the transactions, including drafting all necessary transaction documentation, advising on competition issues relevant to the completion of the transaction, and representing the client before the competition authorities in Latvia and Lithuania.”

The TGS competition law team in Lithuania consisted of Partner Lina Daruliene, Senior Associate Rasa Zasciurinskaite, and Associate Jurate Radvilaviciete, and the team in Latvia consisted of Partner Inese Hazenfusa, Associate Liene Iesmina, and Associate Mara Stabulniece.