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Motieka & Audzevicius has successfully represented the bankrupt Lithuanian national air carriage company flyLAL in a dispute over damages it claims were caused by Air Baltic Corporation and the Riga International Airport.

According to Motieka & Audzevicius, “the factual basis of the claim is that Air Baltic Corporation entered into anticompetitive agreements with the Riga International Airport, as a consequence receiving enormous rebates which enabled Air Baltic Corporation to engage in predatory pricing and anticompetitive strategies against flyLAL. As a result, the air carriage company flyLAL had to withdraw from relevant markets.”

The firm reports that the Vilnius Regional Court upheld flyLAL’s claim and ordered Air Baltic to pay flyLAL over EUR 16 million in damages and procedural interest. 

Air Baltic and the Riga International Airport have 30 days to file an appeal, should they chose to do so.

Image Source: InsectWorld / Shutterstock.com

KPD Consulting has supported Ciklum on securing a lease/sublease agreement for office space in Kyiv’s Gulliver Office Centre.

KPD Consulting reviewed the lease agreement and advised Ciklum on negotiations with the landlord and subtenant for approximately 14,000 square meters of office space in what it described as a “flagship office centre” in Kyiv’s business district. 

Commenting on the agreement, Anna Ryzhova, Ciklum’s General Counsel, said: “We were pleased to engage Mr. Kysil and his team in this matter. They handled every assignment with confidence, integrity, and care.”

Vladislav Kysil, Partner and Head of the Estate and Construction Practice of KPD, added: “It was our true pleasure to be of assistance for leading global company of IT industry. We were accompanied by high-class professionals from Ciklum and DTZ that made possible accomplishing of this challenging assignment successfully.”

Supporting Kysil on the deal was KPD Associate Mikhail Semka.

The landlord relied on in-house counsel only.

Image Source: en.gullivercenter.com

SK&S has advised the Agora S.A. media conglomerate on the acquisition of 106 shares in the GoldenLine Sp. z.o.o. online portal, representing 53% of GoldenLine’s share capital.

The total acquisition price amounted to PLN 8.48 million (approximately EUR 1.9 million). As a result of the transaction Agora — which had acquired a previous 72 shares, representing 36% of the share capital, in December, 2011 — now has a total of 178 shares in GoldenLine, representing 89% of share capital, and constituting 89% of the votes at the general meeting of shareholders of the Company.

GoldenLine, which was founded in Warsaw in 2005, owns and operates the goldenline.pl social portal. The minority shareholder of GoldenLine remains GC Geek Code Ltd, controlled by Mariusz Gralewski — the company’s main founder. 

Agora was created on the eve of the parliamentary elections in 1989, and since has grown into one of the largest media companies in Poland, owning, among other things, the country’s largest daily newspaper (Gazeta Wyborcza), its largest cinema operator (Helios S.A.), and one of its leading outdoor advertising companies (AMS).

The SK&S team was headed by Partner Pawel Moskwa, who was assisted by Senior Associate Leszek Malecki and Associate Karol Skibniewski.

RTPR Allen & Overy has advised Enterprise Investors on the sale of Smartree Romania, which the firm describes as “an important player on the market providing outsourcing payroll and personnel administration process services,”  to buyers Dragos Rosca and Cylatrea Investments. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.

Enterprise Investors claims to be “the oldest and one of the largest private equity firms in Central and Eastern Europe.” According to its website, the firm — which has been active since 1990 — “has raised eight funds with total capital exceeding EUR 2 billion. These funds have invested over EUR 1.7 billion in 135 companies across a range of sectors and exited 110 companies with total gross proceeds of EUR 2.3 billion.”

The RTPR Allen & Overy team included Managing Partner Costin Taracila, Associate Laurentiu Tisescu, and Junior Associate Andrei Lupu. 

The buyers were advised by their in-house lawyers.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges has advised Unipetrol RPA on its acquisition of 68 filling stations in the Czech Republic from Austria’s OMV. CHSH and the Czech office of Becker & Poliakoff advised OMV on the transaction, which Weil reports “will significantly strengthen Unipetrol’s position and expand its Benzina filling station network to over 400 stations.”

Completion of the transaction is subject to the fulfilment of certain pre-conditions, including obtaining the necessary approval by the antitrust authorities. 

The Weil, Gotshal & Manges team was led by Partner Vladimir Kykal and Associate Tomas Bayer.

The CHSH team advising OMV Aktiengesellschaft was led by Vienna-based Partner Clemens Hasenauer, and included Vienna-based Partner Harald Stingl and Prague-based Partner Pavel Siroky

The Becker & Poliakoff team advising on Czech law aspects of the deal consisted of Senior Partner Jan Kotik and Associates Marek Novotny and Jan Vanicek.

Image Source: tishomir / Shutterstock.com

CMS’s Vienna and Rome offices have advised the Viennese parking garage operator Best in Parking on its first issuance of a corporate bond, made via one of its subsidiaries. The Joint Lead Managers and Bookrunners Raiffeisen Bank International and Erste Group Bank were advised by Wolf Theiss. The interest of the bond is 3.375% and the total nominal value amounted to EUR 90 million.

“With this corporate bond, the Austrian capital market has put an extremely long dry spell behind it,” said CMS Partner Martin Zuffer. “We are very pleased that this spell is, for the moment, over and that we could provide support in the first issuance of a corporate bond in Austria in nine months. This transaction has attracted a lot of attention internationally and we hope that there will be more like this in the Austrian market in the near future.”

CMS’s team supported Best In Parking in the due diligence process, the drawing up of the prospectus, the approval procedure with the Luxembourg supervisory authority, and the negotiations with the engaged lead managers. Zuffer led the team, and with the assistance of Attorney at Law Phillip Mark and Stefan Fuhrer from the Vienna capital markets law practice, as well as Partners Sibylle Novak and Paolo Bonolis from CMS Italy. 

Best In Parking operates a total of 130 parking garages, with 73 in Austria, 56 in Italy, and one in Locarno, Switzerland. The number of parking spaces currently amounts to 23,000 in Austria and 36,000 in Italy.

The Wolf Theiss team was led by Counsel Alexander Haas, who was supported by Associate Nikolaus Dinhof.

Klavins Ellex has advised Uniper Ruhrgas International GmbH (formerly E.ON Ruhrgas International GmbH) on the January 28, 2016 sale of 28.97% of the shares of AS Latvijas Gaze (LG) —  Latvia’s sole natural gas utility — to the Marguerite Fund for an undisclosed amount. The Marguerite Fund was advised by Cobalt’s Riga office.

LG has exclusive rights in Latvia to store, transmit, distribute, and trade natural gas. 

The seller, Uniper, is part of a global energy company headquartered in Germany, and it has been a shareholder in LG since its privatization in 1997. After the sale, it retains 18.26% of LG shares. 

The buyer, the Marguerite Fund, is a specialized investment fund backed by the European Commission and six major European financial institutions ((Caisse des Depots et Consignations, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, European Investment Bank, Instituto de Credito Oficial, KfW, and PKO Bank Polski) with the mission to make capital-intensive investments in energy and transport infrastructure projects within the 28 Member States of the EU. The Marguerite Fund is advised by Marguerite Adviser S.A., an independent advisory company.

According to a statement released by Klavins Ellex, the transaction is one of the largest share sales in Latvia in recent years, and it required “multiple innovative solutions to complex regulatory, legislative and legal issues that arose during lengthy negotiations, and occurred against the backdrop of the challenging geopolitical situation impacting the region and the energy markets.” The firm also reported that the transaction “was particularly complex in that it was negotiated and executed concurrently with the ‘unbundling’ of the natural gas market in Latvia as required by EU Directives, wherein Latvia is to imminently adopt legislation that will require both the legal and ownership separation of the natural gas transmission and underground gas storage facility assets of LG from its natural gas trading activities.”

The Klavins Ellex team advising Uniper was led by Senior Counsel Ivars Slokenbergs.

The Cobalt team performed legal due diligence of AS Latvijas Gaze and provided advice and support to Marguerite Adviser S.A “on all Latvian law related matters throughout the transaction process.” The firm’s team was led by Partner Guntars Zile and Senior Associate Martins Tarlaps.

Editor’s Note: While the rest of the article was correct, the headline erroneously stated that Uniper had acquired, rather than sell a stake in Latvijas Gaze. This has been corrected and we apologize for the error. 

Czech lawyer Tereza Rychtarikova has replaced Vladimira Chlandova as General Counsel at UPC Czech Republic in Prague.

After graduating from Charles University in 2005, Rychtarikova has focused her legal career on the TMT industry, as she began as a lawyer at Telefonica O2 Czech Republic in March 2006, then moved over to Ceske Radiokomunikace in January 2009. She moved to UPC in September 2010, at which point she redirected her career path from the horizontal to the vertical. After two and a half years at UPC she was promoted to Legal and Regulatory Counsel, and in July 2014 she was promoted again to Director Business Legal Affairs. In January 2015 she became Legal Director — a position she kept until accepting the promotion to General Counsel & Director Public Policy position this January.

Rychtarikova oversees a team of 7 lawyers at UPC, including the members of a regulatory team.

When asked about her response to the new challenge, Rychtarikova laughed. “Actually,” she said, “I have so much work to do that I haven’t even had time to be nervous.”

Turning serious, Rychtarikova referred to the 10-month Fast Forward management development program at Liberty Global — the mother company of UPC Czech Republic — which, she said, she finished in 2014. According to Rychtarikova, it “helped me a lot in my career with this company.” 

Outgoing UPC Czech Republic GC Vladimira Chlandova, who held that role for almost 17 years, is functioning for the time being as an as an independent consultant to UPC, in a “Senior Leadership Team Advisor” capacity. According to her LinkedIn profile, she is “supervising my previous key agenda [in the] Legal/Public Policy/HR area as part-timer for interim period of 1st H. 2016 while enjoying family life and starting a private business.”

Three lawyers from Noerr’s Warsaw office were on its multi-jurisdictional team advising the China’s Pearl River Piano Group (CPRPG) —  the largest piano manufacturer in the world — on a strategic alliance agreement with the renowned German piano maker Schimmel.

The parties have agreed not to disclose the financial terms of their strategic alliance, the implementation of which is still subject to clearance by Chinese authorities.

Pearl River Piano produces some 130,000 grand pianos and uprights per year. According to Noerr, new strategic partner Schimmel “is the leading brand for premium grand and upright pianos in Europe … [and] with some 2,500 instruments produced per year [is] one of the largest European manufacturers.” 

“This is yet another excellent example of the increasingly stronger market position of our China Desk,” said Florian Becker, co-head of Noerr’s Corporate/M&A Practice Group. In addition to Warsaw-based Partner Arkadiusz Ruminski and Associates Pawel Radek and Irena Sobczak, the firm’s team consisted of lawyers in Munich, Frankfurt, and Berlin.

Doubinsky & Osharova reports that the Economic Court of Kiev has ruled on behalf of firm client BASF SE in the cancellation action it filed against the State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine (SIPS) for granting a Trademark Certificate for the Cyrillic spelling of “PULS”.

Doubinsky & Osharova reported that, according to firm Partner Anton Koval, “the court reasonably and based on the expert examination’s report established that the Cyrillic “PULS” trademark is confusingly similar to BASF’s previously registered trademarks for the Cyrilic version of “PULSAR”.

The Court ordered the SIPS to amend the State Trademark Register to reflect the invalidity of the Cyrillic “PULS” trademark and to publish the news in the Industrial Property bulletin.

BASF’s interests were represented by Doubsinky & Osharova Anton Koval and Attorney at Law Nikolay Koval.