CEE Legal Matters
In-depth coverage of the news and newsmakers that shape Europe's emerging markets
Halfway through 2019 Ukraine has already seen major changes in its energy sector’s legal framework, including the effect of the recent decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine involving the legal status and decision-making authority of the Ukrainian energy market regulator (the “Regulator”). The shockwaves are likely to go far beyond 2019.
After undergoing healthy levels of Corporate/M&A activity in recent times, as we move towards 2019 we expect the Slovak market to remain stable. A notable exception, however, is in the logistics asset class, where we project inbound investment to soar.
Venture capital investments in Bulgarian start-ups are on the rise, and modern legal structures such as share option plans and convertible notes can, if local law peculiarities are taken into account, be applied in the country.
The last 18 months have seen significant interest and activity in the Hungarian start-up ecosystem.
One of the most controversial parts of corporate reorganization operations planning in Romania involves the use of share capital contributions or share swaps as a means to transfer company control – operations that fall into a legislative and administrative grey area.
In this era of digitalization, where legal frameworks around the world are rapidly changing to cope with revolutionary developments in the IT sector, the Serbian Government is following a similar path. Serbia is in the EU accession process and is thus obliged to harmonize its legislation with EU laws. One such law is EU Regulation No. 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (the “Relevant EU Regulation”).
In Slovakia, the purposeful avoidance of insolvency and liquidation proceedings by failed companies (including VAT carrousel fraudsters) has developed into a common market standard.
