On 13 October 2022, the Act amending the Commercial Companies Code and certain other acts (“Act”) will come into force. Companies, especially those operating under a management agreement between a parent company and a subsidiary, will have to reorganise their structures to some extent in order to comply with the new regulations.

Grid connection in Romania is mainly regulated by ANRE Order no. 59/2013 approving the public grid connection regulation (the “Connection Regulation”), which has already been amended twice in 2022 (under ANRE Orders no. 17/2022 and 81/2022) and will soon be amended for a third time. Hence, the legal regime governing grid connection is quite a carousel of changes and reshapes.

The resilience of the transactions market and the trust of investors in the Baltic region has proved remarkable, although figures show a 15% decrease in global mid-market M&A deals (according to the Refinitiv published M&A Review of the first half of 2022). Despite the Ukraine war and mounting global challenges the deal flow, although at a much calmer pace, continues and remains promising for the second half of the year. Looking back on the first six months, COBALT experts highlight the main trends in each of the Baltic countries.

Romanian DPA case studies – our top 5 picks.

Despite being already recognized as one of the leading European countries regarding foreign investments, the Republic of Serbia continues its active policy of attracting foreign investors. The direct consequence of the substantial increasement in investments in a plethora of different fields is the fact that there are even more and more foreign natural and legal persons willing to invest in producing audiovisual works on the territory of the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Serbia recognized this trend and took measures to improve the environment for investing in audiovisual works within the so-called creative industries (e.g. films, short films, TV shows, documentaries, animated films, etc. ‘’Industry’’).

The Turkish Law No. 6563 on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce (“E-Commerce Law”) adopted in 2014, basically regulates the responsibilities of e-commerce service providers ("Service Provider") and e-commerce intermediary service providers (“Intermediary Service Provider”), the contracts made over electronic communication tools and their obligations to provide information based on electronic commerce, and the sanctions that can be applied. The E-Commerce Law also aims to provide an environment of trust in the electronic commerce market, protect personal data, the confidentiality of communication, and protect consumers in their transactions in the electronic commerce Marketplaces (“Marketplace”).

During 2020, the Regional Court of Itzehoe (Germany) enacted a judgment in case no. 10 O 84/20, under which “Google” has a legitimate interest by virtue of Article 6(1)(f) GDPR to publish images of personal property for the needs of its services “Google Maps” and “Google Earth”.

FDI screening was for a long time a blank spot on the regulatory landscape for most countries in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). Unlike Western European Member States, relatively few countries in Central Eastern Europe had instruments to vet foreign investments and those that did exist often were of little practical consequence.

Over the last years the Ukrainian legal community has been actively discussing the developments in the antitrust reform and making practical efforts to implement it. MPs, the Antimonopoly Committee (the AMC) and other state bodies, international organizations, domestic and foreign antitrust experts have been involved in this process. This article provides an overview of certain changes that will further contribute to the development of the Ukrainian antitrust and competition legislation, and which have already been reflected in draft laws. Most of them were published in the form of recommendations provided to Ukraine by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) several years ago. 

This article outlines the possibilities of a legal defence against “screenscraping” – a way of automated data extraction from web sites of third parties without their consent (or even against an express prohibition).

On 26 July 2022, Law No. 265/2022 regarding the trade registry and amending and supplementing other legal instruments applicable to the registration with the trade registry (“Law No. 265/2022”), including the Companies Law No. 31/1990 (“Companies Law”), was published in the Official Gazette No. 750/2022.

In a decision published on 26 July 2022, Austrian data protection authority established that Volkswagen was in violation of Articles 13, 28, 35 and 30 of the GDPR.

Since the end of the 2010s foreign direct investment (“FDI”) considerations have been on the forefront of transaction planning and management. Although a unified EU-level screening mechanism is not in place, recently the European Commission (“EC”) closed a landmark case, while another one is currently ongoing before the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) where the interplay of EU law and more specifically, EU merger law and national FDI rules were/are assessed. Dicta in these cases may have considerable implications in national FDI practice. This summary therefore provides a quick glance-through of the key notables taken from these cases.

Due to the rapidly growing real estate sector, the lawmaker specifically regulates contractual relationships between the parties in order to prevent any loss of right of any one of the parties. Along with the typical real estate sales agreements, preliminary sales agreements are also needed by the sellers and buyers due to many reasons (such as planning a budget for construction, speeding up the period of the construction etc.).

On 15 March 2022, the Parliament of Ukraine passed Law of Ukraine “On Organisation of Labour Relations under the Martial Law” No. 2136-IX, dated 1 July 2022 (“Law 2136”). Law 2136 was intended to define the aspects of labour relations during martial law.

A new asset peace regulation entered into force with the article 50 of Law No. 7417 on Certain Amendments to Civil Servants Law and Certain Laws and Statutory Decree No. 375 [the “Law No. 7417”] which was published in the Official Gazette numbered 31887 on 5 July 2022.

Ukrainian Bar Association, July 27, 2022: Since February 2022, our primary objective has been to resist Russian aggression against Ukraine on the legal front. We urge world leaders to impose radical sanctions against Russia and establish comprehensive accountability and damages mechanisms. In addition, we support Ukrainian citizens and lawyers affected by the war. However, the Ukrainian Bar Association needs support from the international legal community to survive this fateful time and continue our activities.

AgiLawyer Society, July 25, 2022: We are seeking additional volunteer lawyers to join our international platform UA.SUPPORT - particularly lawyers based in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Hungary, and also in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden. If you are interested, please fill out the following form on our website UA.SUPPORT or contact us by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to discuss opportunities for cooperation.