Publications

The Life Sci­ences and Health­care Sec­tor is highly tech­no­logy-driv­en and an in­creas­ingly dy­nam­ic ap­proach is taken when ad­opt­ing busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­lo­gies. This sec­tor’s above-av­er­age up­take in tech­no­logy is re­flec­ted in its pri­or­it­isa­tion of meas­ures against IT fail­ure. However, the sec­tor is of­ten un­der­prepared for tech­no­logy risks, with many busi­nesses still not hav­ing pro­cesses in place to man­age key risks des­pite cur­rent and fu­ture con­cerns around dis­putes arising from this area.This re­port is a deep dive in­to data first pro­duced for the re­port Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion: Man­aging Risks in a Chan­ging Land­scape. This saw over 500 people sur­veyed from mul­tiple in­dus­tries across the world.Here we look in de­tail at the 75 re­spond­ents from the Life Sci­ences and Health­care sec­tor, and their per­spect­ives on the risks as­so­ci­ated with busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­lo­gies, in­clud­ing emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies.Down­load the Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion Life Sci­ences and Health­care re­port now to read about:Drivers of tech­no­logy ad­op­tion in the Life Sci­ences and Health­care sec­torNew risks emer­ging and tra­di­tion­al bar­ri­ers to risk man­age­ment­Cur­rent tech­no­logy risks in the Life Sci­ences and Health­care sec­tor­Fu­ture risks, in­clud­ing IP con­cerns and AIPre­ferred ap­proaches to tech­no­logy dis­pute res­ol­u­tion for the Life Sci­ences and Health­care sec­tor

A warm wel­come... ...to the fourth edi­tion of the GDPR En­force­ment Track­er Re­port – the an­niversary edi­tion cel­eb­rat­ing five years of GDPR.In the five years since the GDPR be­came ap­plic­able its power­ful frame­work for im­pos­ing fines has cer­tainly helped to raise aware­ness and en­cour­age com­pli­ance ef­forts – just as the European le­gis­lat­or in­ten­ded. At the same time, the risk of fines of up to EUR 20 mil­lion or 4% of a com­pany’s glob­al an­nu­al turnover can also lead to fear and re­luct­ance or ig­nor­ance about com­pli­ance is­sues.We still be­lieve that facts are bet­ter than fear.This is why we con­tinu­ously up­date our list of pub­licly known fines in the GDPR  En­force­ment Track­er and star­ted the GDPR En­force­ment Track­er Re­port as an an­nu­al deep dive ap­proach to provide you with more in­sights in­to the world of GDPR fines.As in the three pre­vi­ous edi­tions, the GDPR En­force­ment Track­er Re­port starts with the Ex­ec­ut­ive Sum­mary (also avail­able as a PDF ver­sion), fol­lowed by the “Num­bers and Fig­ures” sec­tion and the “En­force­ment In­sights per busi­ness sec­tor” (also in­clud­ing the over­arch­ing em­ploy­ment cat­egory. The “En­force­ment In­sights per coun­try” provide back­ground on the spe­cif­ic en­force­ment frame­work un­der na­tion­al law. Some re­marks on our meth­od­o­logy can be found at the very end of the re­port.

Stay in­formed about the latest sus­tain­ab­il­ity claims trends and de­vel­op­ments CMS Green Globe is an in­ter­act­ive plat­form that al­lows busi­nesses and cli­ents to stay aware and duly in­formed about all the main rap­idly chan­ging trends and de­vel­op­ments re­lated to sus­tain­ab­il­ity claims across the world.Here you will find in­form­a­tion on reg­u­la­tion and de­vel­op­ments you need to know when ad­vert­ising and mar­ket­ing your busi­ness or product by us­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity claims as well as our key ex­perts to sup­port you in nav­ig­at­ing the world of such claims.CMS Green Globe helps you to avoid gre­en­wash­ing your con­sumer in your jur­is­dic­tion as well as across the globe. Dis­cov­er CMS Green Globe Best ex­plored on desktop

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

With no clear end in sight, the dev­ast­at­ing war in Ukraine threatens to di­vide Europe polit­ic­ally and eco­nom­ic­ally. Coun­tries in the Cent­ral, East­ern, and South-East­ern Europe (CE­SEE) re­gion are right in the middle of this di­vide, but war on the east­ern­most fringes of Europe is not the only geo­pol­it­ic­al is­sue mul­tina­tion­als across the re­gion must be aware of.Among fre­quent flare ups of ten­sions on the Kosovo-Ser­bia bor­der, peace and sta­bil­ity is once again far from as­sured in the West­ern Balkans (Al­bania, Bos­nia and Herzegov­ina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Mace­do­nia, and Ser­bia).With all these coun­tries at some stage of EU ac­ces­sion, two re­gion­al in­teg­ra­tion ini­ti­at­ives (the “Ber­lin Pro­cess” and the “Open Balkan”) are in place to im­prove re­gion­al co­oper­a­tion, in­clud­ing work­force mo­bil­ity between West­ern Balkans coun­tries, and pre­pare them for mem­ber­ship of the bloc.While Ser­bia, Al­bania and North Mace­do­nia are full-fledged mem­bers of both ini­ti­at­ives, Bos­nia and Herzegov­ina, Montenegro, and Kosovo are still re­luct­ant to form­ally join, even though they par­ti­cip­ate in some sum­mits.The agree­ments already signed with­in the Open Balkan ini­ti­at­ive will uni­fy the la­bour mar­ket for mem­ber coun­tries, and re­move the re­quire­ment for work per­mits or oth­er form­al­it­ies.The Open Balkan ini­ti­at­ive is par­tic­u­larly sup­por­ted by the US and its Cham­ber of Com­merce of­fices in the re­gion, as in­ter­na­tion­al com­pan­ies with re­gion­al hubs in Ser­bia are look­ing for­ward to hav­ing easi­er ac­cess to la­bour from neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.However, even though the frame­work agree­ments were signed more than a year ago, not much has been done to im­ple­ment them. 2023 is ex­pec­ted to be the year that this is fi­nal­ised. On the oth­er hand, the EU has been slow to come to de­cisions on ex­pan­sion. For ex­ample, North Mace­do­nia has been a can­did­ate coun­try since 2005.Ac­cord­ing to ana­lys­is by the In­ter­na­tion­al In­sti­tute for Middle East and Balkan Stud­ies, the in­de­cis­ive­ness of the EU has stra­tegic con­sequences in the West­ern Balkans. In par­tic­u­lar, there are real dangers that the un­cer­tainty of the EU en­large­ment pro­cess, com­bined with loc­al pop­u­lar pres­sure, could, after many years of wait­ing, pro­pel some coun­tries to change their geo­pol­it­ic­al ori­ent­a­tion. This is par­tic­u­larly con­cern­ing at a time when Rus­sia, China, Tur­key, and oth­er out­side coun­tries are seek­ing to in­crease their in­flu­ence in the re­gion.2023 may there­fore be an­oth­er polit­ic­ally tur­bu­lent year in the CE­SEE. This year’s par­lia­ment­ary and/or pres­id­en­tial elec­tions in Tur­key, Greece, Po­land, Montenegro, and Bul­garia could trig­ger fur­ther un­rest or in­stabil­ity. And all of this could ob­vi­ously af­fect the la­bour mar­ket in the re­gion. Em­ploy­ment short­ages driv­ing wage in­fla­tion The in­fla­tion rate is fore­cast to re­main el­ev­ated through­out 2023. Min­im­um wages have re­cently in­creased in most CE­SEE coun­tries. However, these nom­in­al wage in­creases do not match the pace of in­fla­tion, caus­ing real wages to fall. A pre­dicted eco­nom­ic re­ces­sion in 2023 is not ex­pec­ted to cause high un­em­ploy­ment, giv­en tight la­bour mar­ket con­di­tions with high va­cancy rates.Mass lay­offs are ex­pec­ted in tech­no­logy, me­dia, and tele­coms, but mostly im­pact­ing com­pan­ies that over­hired dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. At the same time, deep short­ages in par­tic­u­lar jobs and pro­fes­sions are ex­pec­ted to drive up wages and stim­u­late the mi­gra­tion of la­bour – es­pe­cially skilled la­bour – between com­pan­ies, and even sec­tors.For ex­ample, the Ser­bi­an Min­istry of Elec­tron­ic Com­mu­nic­a­tions es­tim­ates the coun­try needs 30,000 soft­ware de­velopers to meet the planned growth de­mands of many in­ter­na­tion­al com­pan­ies with R&D hubs or ser­vice centres.Tal­ent man­age­ment is be­com­ing a cor­por­ate pri­or­ity as com­pan­ies struggle to at­tract, re­tain and en­gage work­ers. En­vir­on­ment­al, so­cial, and gov­ernance (ESG) is­sues are tak­ing centre stage in or­der to at­tract work­ers, even at a time when com­pan­ies are nav­ig­at­ing un­pre­ced­en­ted en­ergy costs and sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions. That’s highly im­port­ant when em­ploy­ees, es­pe­cially the “Gen Z”, seek pur­pose and con­nec­tion with­in their work. Em­ploy­ees are be­com­ing more and more in­ter­ested in in­tern­al mo­bil­ity and ca­reer pro­gres­sion op­por­tun­it­ies, as well as in di­verse forms of work and mo­bile work pos­sib­il­it­ies. Also, it is im­port­ant for em­ploy­ers to do some self-in­tro­spec­tion on wheth­er the way they at­tract tal­ent is truly in­clus­ive, or if em­ploy­ees per­ceive their lead­er­ship style as em­path­et­ic. EU emig­ra­tion con­tin­ues to hit pro­ductiv­ity Work­force short­ages are one of the main bar­ri­ers to growth in the CE­SEE re­gion. A mi­gra­tion crisis, which has boos­ted la­bour sup­ply in Po­land and Cze­ch­ia in par­tic­u­lar, has not changed this.A sig­ni­fic­ant part of the EU 2023 Work Pro­gramme is fo­cused on fa­cil­it­at­ing work­force mo­bil­ity with­in the bloc and en­abling easi­er ac­cess by non-EU na­tion­als to the EU la­bour mar­ket.Giv­en that non-EU coun­tries in the re­gion have struggled for dec­ades with the loss of highly skilled work­ers to the EU, con­tin­ued emig­ra­tion is cer­tain to con­tin­ue to im­pact the pro­ductiv­ity of non-EU eco­nom­ies. Di­git­al nomad work­ing on the rise An­oth­er im­port­ant trend post-pan­dem­ic, and in light of the need to at­tract skilled la­bour, is re­mote work­ing from an­oth­er coun­try. Ac­cord­ing to the 2022 Spe­cial Euroba­ro­met­er on in­tra-EU la­bour mo­bil­ity, al­most one-in-five Europeans en­vis­age work­ing out­side their own coun­try, and half con­sider liv­ing and work­ing abroad as an im­port­ant ex­per­i­ence with be­ne­fits bey­ond their pro­fes­sion­al life.Di­git­al nomad visas – which en­able for­eign cit­izens to stay and work re­motely in their host coun­try for a cer­tain peri­od, usu­ally one year, without pay­ing in­come taxes or oth­er so­cial con­tri­bu­tions in that jur­is­dic­tion – are be­com­ing more pop­u­lar.Sev­er­al CE­SEE coun­tries, in­clud­ing Ro­mania, Croa­tia, Hun­gary, Czech Re­pub­lic, Montenegro, and Al­bania, already is­sue di­git­al nomad visas. Ser­bia is plan­ning to ad­opt rel­ev­ant reg­u­la­tions this year and North Mace­do­nia is ex­pec­ted to fol­low soon. More work­place le­gis­la­tion in the pipeline As to oth­er not­able le­gis­la­tion in 2023, most EU coun­tries with­in the CE­SEE re­gion are plan­ning to im­ple­ment in full the EU dir­ect­ives on work-life bal­ance and on pre­dict­able work­ing con­di­tions.Sev­er­al coun­tries are also fi­nal­ising im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Whis­tleblow­ing Dir­ect­ive – though Hun­gary is still fall­ing be­hind, with no draft laws in place.One nov­el idea be­ing dis­cussed in Slov­e­nia is a pos­sible short­en­ing of the work­ing week to 30 hours.In Ser­bia, we fi­nally ex­pect a change in reg­u­la­tion that will in­tro­duce a com­bined res­id­ence and work per­mit and provide a prop­er leg­al frame­work for in­tern­ships. Art­icle first ap­peared in Janu­ary 2023 is­sued by In­ter­na­tion­al Em­ploy­ment Law­yer 

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.

While Europe is the most im­pacted re­gion by the on­go­ing war in Ukraine, the IT ser­vice mar­kets in Cent­ral and East­ern Europe (CEE) are ex­pec­ted to con­tin­ue to grow by nearly 6% and 7% in 2022 and 2023...

This in­ter­view with Ag­nieszka Skoru­p­in­ska first ap­peared in the Fu­ture of Emer­ging Europe: Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Re­port 2022.  A copy of the full re­port is also avail­able to ac­cess here. The ESG chal­lenge is a drive to­wards in­nov­a­tion Due to a vari­ety of his­tor­ic­al factors, sus­tain­ab­il­ity is­sues have con­sti­tuted a sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenge for the emer­ging Europe re­gion. After the fall of the Ber­lin wall, the situ­ation with re­spect to fore­most en­vir­on­ment­al and so­cial is­sues was dif­fi­cult. The fore­go­ing was es­pe­cially ap­par­ent with re­spect to en­vir­on­ment­al mat­ters as the pre­ser­va­tion of the en­vir­on­ment and its pos­sible im­pact on hu­man health was not a pri­or­ity for the rel­ev­ant au­thor­it­ies and busi­ness dur­ing the com­mun­ist peri­od. While there were many in­dus­tri­al plants in CEE at that time, their equip­ment was out­dated and they were nev­er ser­i­ously re­quired to cut down their en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact. 

This art­icle first ap­peared in the Fu­ture of Emer­ging Europe: Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Re­port 2022.  A copy of the full re­port is also avail­able to ac­cess here.De­vel­op­ments in ESG is­sues in emer­ging Europe’s en­ergy sec­tor con­tin­ue apace. En­ergy gen­er­a­tion com­pan­ies, gov­ern­ments, loc­al au­thor­it­ies and con­sumers are all af­fected by the drive to­wards a fu­ture that is less re­li­ant on fossil fuels.