Kategorie: News

act legal Austria’s Klagenfurt office, WMWP, was ranked ex aequo in first place for the Carinthian market by JUVE.

According to JUVE (https://www.juve.de/), the firm is one of the most important market players in Carinthia. Competitors respect the founding partners Wiedenbauer and Mutz in particular for their know-how in M&A, venture capital financing and real estate law. 

JUVE described act legal Austria’s Klagenfurt office’s advisory mandate of the Carinthian investment administration on the politically controversial partial privatisation of Klagenfurt Airport as one of the most prominent recent mandates. Also, they highlighted the law firm’s increasing benefits from reference mandates from the act legal alliance, which they joined in 2017, as well as their ongoing collection mandates (e.g. for the housing group Buwog).

On October 30th, 2019 Dr. Thomas Block, MBA (act legal Germany) and Dr. Martin Wiedenbauer (act legal Austria) will be speakers at pma focus – Austria‘s largest project management congress. This year’s topic of the congress is „PM UNDER CONSTRUCTION – project management in upheaval“ („PM UNDER CONSTRUCTION – Projektmanagement im Umbruch“).

Among others, they will talk about the changes of project management and the future project management from new and multiple perspectives. Will there be a change of paradigms due to different expectations and complex environments? How will rapid technical developments affect this field?

Find the details of the upcoming event on https://www.pma.at/de/events/pma-focus.

If you already want to get some background information on the topic, read Dr. Thomas Block’s article “Your boss, the roboter” on https://actlegal.com/locations/germany/your-boss-the-roboter (in German only).

Five regional and international law firms had participated in the restricted tender and the winner was announced at the end of February. The legal services cover a number of fields of the airline operation, including cases of aviation law, under this especially customer claims and debt collection; moreover, the legal consultancy of contract law, labour law, advertising and competition law, data protection and GDPR compliance. The Hungarian law firm as a centre shall coordinate the long-term legal engagement distributing the legal tasks among the law offices and they shall provide services in cooperation with each other. The legal engagement in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Austria is covered by act legal firms, whereas the law firms from Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Switzerland are part of act legal’s international legal network.

“In February it was a year ago that we joined the continental-European act legal alliance. Therefore, we are particularly pleased that we can celebrate the anniversary with this great legal engagement. It is already an honorable and challenging task to provide legal services for a company group of this size, not to mention coordinating the work of other law firms in 10 different countries.” – Dr. Gergely Bán, LL.M., the managing partner of the Bán and Karika Attorneys at Law said.  

“The dynamic and professional approach of the act legal alliance was very convincing, in addition the presented references as the combination of these two factors have led for the award of the engagement.” – Mr. Péter Wollner, the purchasing manager of Air France – KLM central European region said.

Clarion Events Ltd. (www.clarion.com) sold all shares in its subsidiary Clarion Events Deutschland GmbH to Easyfairs.

The parties agreed not to disclose the purchase price. The transaction has already been consummated.

Clarion Events Ltd. (www.easyfairs.com) is owned by the private equity investor Blackstone and is present around the globe as one of the world’s leading event organisers. It is headquartered in London, has offices in Continental Europe, Latin America, Middle East, Africa, APAC and North America, and is active across a diverse range of industries including energy, gaming, retail, sports competitions and scientific conferences.

Clarion Events Deutschland GmbH organizes and manages the annual “FMB – The Supplier Show for Mechanical Engineering” event, which, as stated by the managing director of Easyfairs Germany in a press release, is a perfect addition to Easyfair’s existing portfolio of industrial trade fairs. Easyfairs currently organizes more than 200 events in 19 countries.

Counsel Clarion: 

act legal Germany: 

Fabian Brocke, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A, lead partner), Dr. Nina Bogenschütz (Employment); Dr. Florian Wäßle, LL.M. (IP, Data Protection); Nina Honstetter (Corporate/M&A)

Counsel Easyfairs:  
White & Case LLP (Frankfurt)

Background: 

act legal Germany has a long-standing client relationship with Clarion, advising the client comprehensively for many years. The firm has advised Clarion on several transactions in the past, including the acquisition of Premium Group in 2017.

Carlyle, global alternative asset manager and the leading international PE investor, acquired a majority stake in SERgroup, Europe’s largest European Enterprise Content Management solutions (ECM) software provider.

Underlining their commitment to continuity, the four founders i.e. the selling shareholders will retain a significant minority stake in SER. Further details were not disclosed. The transaction has been approved by the relevant antitrust authorities.

The act legal Germany transaction team consisted of Dr. Sven Tischendorf, MBA (managing partner), Dr. Matthias Müller, MBA (partner), Dr. Fabian Brocke, LL.M. (partner), Dr. Florian Wäßle, LL.M. (partner) and Dr. Fabian Laugwitz, MBA, LL.M. (partner). Excluding antitrust law, the act legal Germany partners advised Carlyle in all issues of the acquisition. act legal Germany has a long-standing client relationship with Carlyle.

The SERgroup GmbH (www.ser.de): Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Bonn, Germany, SER is committed to innovation, highly customizable and scalable solutions, and excellent client service. SER began as a provider of electronic archiving and has grown into a supplier of state-of-the-art ECM solutions to companies throughout Europe. Today, more than 550 employees work for SERgroup. The company is present in 22 international locations.

The Carlyle Group (www.carlyle.com): Founded in 1987 in Washington, DC, Carlyle has grown into one of the world’s largest and most successful investment firms, with more than 1,650 professionals operating in 31 offices in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. Since 2002, Carlyle‘s European technology funds have invested €1.4 billion in small and medium-sized businesses and supported their growth plans. Today, the Carlyle Group is a global investment firm with $216 billion of assets under management across 343 investment vehicles.

Dr. Thomas Block, MBA, act legal Germany has published an article in Börsen-Zeitung, a daily newspaper focused on financial markets, about robotics from a labor law perspective.

He claims that the technological progress does not only allow employers to support human workforce by intelligent systems, but also to replace it in specific areas, inter alia in superior positions. That is why it is about time to address the legal framework respectively.

The article is published in Börsen-Zeitung, Edition no. 242, 15 December 2018 and can be accessed via the link on the right (in German only).

act legal Germany is recommended in The Legal500 Germany 2019 in the areas Region Frankfurt/Main, Labor Law and White Collar Defense.

Congratulations to the recommended lawyers Dr. Sven Tischendorf, MBA, Dr. Tara Kamiyar-Müller, Dr. Stephan Schwilden, MBA, Dr. Nina Bogenschütz and Dr. Christian Rosinus!

We are very happy about the feedback: a “very high service level”, which is based on “fast, competent and comprehensive consulting” of this “very good law firm”.

aws Gründerfonds and WMWP Rechtsanwälte publish a practical guide for convertible loans: “In the last years, the convertible loan has become a well-established additional financing option for young businesses in Austria and it enjoys increasing popularity due to numerous reasons,” says Dr. Paul Koppenwallner, LL.M., partner of act legal Austria, WMWP Rechtsanwälte.

The guideline summarizes the essential key facts of the convertible loan as financial instrument and analyzes the following questions:

• What are the characterics of the convertible loan?
• Why should you use convertible loans as financial instrument?
• Risks of the use of convertible loans
• How does a convertible loan contract usually look like?
• Are there formal requirements for a conclusion of such a contract?
• What kind of challenges are investors and founders facing when planning and realizing convertible loan financing?

The authors Dr. Paul Koppenwallner, LL.M. and Bernhard Ungerböck, M.Sc., Investment Manager at aws Gründerfonds, pay particular attention to the legal, strategic and economic aspects of convertible loans. The guide is currently only available in German.

On Saturday, November 10, 2018, the newly-developed Nowa Stacja mall in Pruszków opened its doors to the public. This is the first retail development of its kind in the southern part of Warsaw metropolitan area. ECC Real Estate has built a shopping and entertainment center that perfectly addresses customers’ needs. The leasable area of 27,000 m² hosts approx. 100 retail premises. The tenants were selected on the basis of a poll conducted by Millward Brown in order to learn the expectations of prospective visitors.

The act BSWW legal team made up of attorneys-at-law and legal counsels has been working on this project from the very start. Its members are: Katarzyna Okonek, Izabela Żmijewska, Magdalena Banaszczyk-Głowacka, Michał Sołtyszewski, Mateusz Prokopiuk and Marek Miszkiel. Consulting services provided by the law firm covered the following processes: due diligence analysis and acquisition of the real property, obtaining administrative permits and decisions, financing (incl. cooperation with Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego S.A.), construction process (agreements with the general contractor and suppliers) and leasing.

“It is very important for us to be able to assist ECC Group with yet another prestigious retail project. We can see the growing potential of such developments located outside the main shopping zones in Warsaw. It is definitely the right answer to the needs of those living in the suburbs of the capital,”
says Michał Wielhorski, Managing Partner at act BSWW, who was managing the team responsible for lease agreement negotiations on behalf of ECC Group.

The perfect location close to PKP (Polish State Railways) / SKM (suburban rail) station and 800 parking spaces ensure convenient access to Nowa Stacja. Apart from a broad range of stores, the mall also offers a chance to visit a movie theater, fitness center, kids zone and extensive food-court. It does not come as a surprise, then, that Nowa Stacja drew over 41,000 visitors on its opening day.

Expansión, an important Spanish economic and business newspaper, interviewed Dr. Sven Tischendorf, MBA, a member of the steering committee of act legal. He talks about act legal’s market presence and further expansion.

“We don’t want to be international law firm number 300 in Sao Paulo, but the second or third in the European jurisdictions.”