Publications

With big deals fuel­ling re­cord levels of M&A activ­ity, a steady stream of in­nov­at­ive and dis­rupt­ive tech­no­lo­gies, new and in­creas­ingly com­plex reg­u­lat­ory chal­lenges and a thriv­ing start-up com­munity...

Our en­ga­ging pod­cast and video series, "At CEEntre Stage," is a valu­able re­source for pro­fes­sion­als and leg­al ad­visors seek­ing in-depth in­sights in­to vari­ous Cor­por­ate and M&A top­ics. Our series caters to di­verse busi­nesses in Cent­ral and East­ern Europe, provid­ing com­pre­hens­ive cov­er­age of the on­go­ing chal­lenges they face.Half-hour mod­er­ated dis­cus­sions with leg­al ex­perts and in­dustry lead­ers al­low us to gain valu­able in­sights in­to their vis­ion for the fu­ture, the chal­lenges they face, and ways to im­prove their busi­nesses. We also provide guid­ance on nav­ig­at­ing leg­al com­plex­it­ies and avoid­ing po­ten­tial traps, en­sur­ing our listen­ers re­ceive con­tex­tu­al­ized in­sights in­to the re­gion's dis­tinct­ive busi­ness land­scape and reg­u­lat­ory en­vir­on­ment.Our com­pre­hens­ive cov­er­age of vari­ous in­dus­tries and their on­go­ing chal­lenges makes "At CEEntre Stage" an es­sen­tial re­source for stay­ing ahead of the curve in today's fast-paced eco­nomy. The pod­cast cov­ers rel­ev­ant Cor­por­ate and M&A top­ics from W&I in­sur­ances, FDI to ESOP, joint ven­tures, fin­an­cing and ESG.Tune in to "At CEEntre Stage" today and stay in­formed on the latest in­sights and trends in the world of cor­por­ate law and M&A.

The CMS Cor­por­ate/M&A Group is pleased to launch the 15th edi­tion of the European M&A Study

In­cor­por­at­ing ESG KPIs in­to dir­ect­ors’ re­mu­ner­a­tion The ur­gent need to place sus­tain­ab­il­ity at the heart of com­pany strategy is in­ex­tric­ably linked to in­cent­ives provided to its dir­ect­ors and em­ploy­ees. This Ex­pert Guide aims to provide prac­tic­al in­sights in­to key mar­ket prac­tices and trends aimed at in­cor­por­at­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity and/or En­vir­on­ment­al, So­cial and Gov­ernance (“ESG”) KPIs in­to dir­ect­ors’ re­mu­ner­a­tion.The reg­u­la­tions and re­com­mend­a­tions on ESG-re­lated re­mu­ner­a­tion vary con­sid­er­ably from sec­tor to sec­tor and from coun­try to coun­try. The trend is, how­ever, un­doubtedly to­wards provid­ing dir­ect­ors (and in some cases seni­or/mid-level man­agers) with an in­cent­ive to com­mit to ESG ob­ject­ives de­signed to sup­port and pro­mote ef­fect­ive man­age­ment of sus­tain­ab­il­ity risks.We hope this guide provides the prac­tic­al roadmap you need to fur­ther your busi­ness’s sound re­mu­ner­a­tion prac­tices – wherever in the world you need to op­er­ate. For fur­ther leg­al sup­port and ad­vice, get in touch with your reg­u­lar CMS con­tact or email us at em­ploy­ment@cmsleg­al.com.

The year 2022 star­ted with vari­ous chal­lenges, in­clud­ing rising in­fla­tion and en­ergy prices. Then the Rus­si­an in­va­sion of Ukraine ad­ded yet an­oth­er one. Non­ethe­less, the M&A mar­ket in emer­ging European coun­tries proved to be ex­tremely re­si­li­ent. The re­gion saw M&A activ­ity main­tain a steady pace, though deal val­ues were not­ably lower. Also, vari­ations could be ob­served across ter­rit­or­ies and sec­tors. While 2022 brought a unique set of chal­lenges, deal­mak­ing largely com­pared fa­vour­ably to pre-pan­dem­ic levels.Wel­come to the 2022/23 edi­tion of the Emer­ging Europe re­port.

24/01/2023In­ter­na­tion­al law firm CMS has ad­vised The European Bank for Re­con­struc­tion and De­vel­op­ment (EBRD) on a EUR 10.8 mil­lion loan to Ser­bi­an com­pany Stax Tech­no­lo­gies (Stax).Stax is a man­u­fac­turer of pa­per tis­sue pack­aging ma­chines based in Kon­jevići. It in­tends to use these funds to ex­pand its pro­duc­tion fa­cil­it­ies, pur­chase state-of-the-art equip­ment and im­ple­ment en­ergy ef­fi­ciency im­prove­ments, in­clud­ing the in­stall­a­tion of a new 300KW rooftop sol­ar power sys­tem, which will al­low the com­pany to pro­duce the en­ergy it needs for its own op­er­a­tion in a sus­tain­able way. CMS ad­vised EBRD on all Eng­lish and Ser­bi­an law as­pects of the trans­ac­tion and ac­ted as a lead­ing coun­sel, provid­ing as­sist­ance in pre­par­a­tion, ne­go­ti­ation and com­ple­tion of the rel­ev­ant fin­ance and se­cur­ity doc­u­ments and clos­ing the trans­ac­tion.CMS Part­ner Ra­fal Za­krzewski com­men­ted: “We are de­lighted to have ad­vised our long-stand­ing cli­ent EBRD on this loan, which will have such a pos­it­ive im­pact for the loc­al Ser­bi­an com­munity. The firm’s lead­ing po­s­i­tion in the CEE and ex­pert­ise al­lows us to handle more and more ma­jor and com­plex trans­ac­tions for our cli­ents.”The CMS Eng­lish law team was led by Ra­fal Za­krzewski and Orest Matviychuk, with sup­port from Ivan Pshyk and Michal Hore­lik (Fin­ance).The CMS Ser­bi­an law team was led by Milica Pop­ović with the sup­port of Jovana Bin­gu­lac, Ksen­ija Bor­eta (Bank­ing and Fin­ance); and Mar­ija Marošan (Real Es­tate and En­ergy).

CMS Bel­grade raises aware­ness of key ESG im­ple­ment­a­tion risks

Pub­lished on 3 Novem­ber 2022CMS has ad­vised a con­sor­ti­um of banks con­sist­ing of Uni­Cred­it, Cred­it Suisse, Eurobank and OTP Bank on the €205 mil­lion re­fin­an­cing of Čibuk, a 158 MW on­shore wind farm loc­ated in Ser­bia. The Čibuk wind farm is owned by the Taaleri Sol­ar­Wind I Fund and its co-in­vestors, Fin­nfund, Mas­dar and DEG, the Ger­man de­vel­op­ment fin­ance in­sti­tu­tion. With 57 tur­bines, it is the largest wind farm in Ser­bia and pro­duces enough elec­tri­city to sup­ply around 87 thou­sand house­holds. It off­sets the equi­val­ent of around 380,000 tonnes of car­bon di­ox­ide dur­ing each year of op­er­a­tion.CMS ac­ted as leg­al ad­visors to the lenders in re­spect of the loan fin­an­cing pack­age.The Eng­lish law CMS team was led by Ra­fal Za­krzewski and Przemysław Ka­ro­lak, with sup­port from Mar­cin Krzemi­en, Michał Hore­lik and Jak­ub Smi­ałek (Bank­ing & Fin­ance).  The Ser­bi­an law CMS team was led by Milica Pop­ovic, with sup­port from Ksen­ija Bor­eta, Jovana Bin­gu­lac (Bank­ing & Fin­ance), Ivan Gazdic and Mar­ija Marosan (Real Es­tate & En­ergy). 

Glob­al­isa­tion, polit­ic­al tur­bu­lence, changes in urb­an liv­ing pat­terns, in­creased di­git­isa­tion, shift­ing con­sumer be­ha­viour and flex­ible work­ing are just some of the is­sues that are trans­form­ing the de­mands...

Fin­an­cial and bank­ing le­gis­la­tion does not stand still. So neither do we.At CMS we em­ploy over 500 bank­ing & fin­ance law­yers to an­ti­cip­ate, in­ter­pret and ad­vise on the loc­al, cross-bor­der and in­ter­na­tion­al...

We are pleased to share with you the 2023 edi­tion of the European M&A Out­look pub­lished by CMS in as­so­ci­ation with Mer­ger­mar­ket.