Autor: office@vibration.sk

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).

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.

act legal Czech Republic won the new category of Energy and Energy Projects in this year’s prestigious ratings of law firms „Law Firm of the Year“ by EPRAVO.CZ.

Mgr. Ing. Jan Havel, the head of ŘANDA HAVEL LEGAL’s energy team, considers this award a great success: „Energy and energy projects are one of the main areas of our services. We are therefore delighted that we have become law firm of the year in this new category. Great thanks to all members of our energy team, as well as to all our clients, without whose confidence we wouldn‘t have won this award”.

In addition to energy, act legal Czech Republic has placed highly in the other 12 categories. In competition with more than 50 Czech and international offices, ŘANDA HAVEL LEGAL is “highly recommended” in the categories of Development and Real Estate Projects, Information Technology Law, Public Procurement, Intellectual Property, Restructuring and Insolvency and Competition Law, and is “recommended” in the categories of M&A, Dispute Resolution and Arbitration, Banking and Finance, Telecommunications and Media, Corporate Law and Labour Law. This result puts the law firm among the best law firms in the Czech Republic.

The annual awards are decided by an independent group of 250 evaluators from the ranks of companies and institutions, as well as by EPRAVO.CZ, an independent entity that monitors and follows lawyers in the Czech Republic.

ŘANDA HAVEL LEGAL and its lawyers are once again recommended by The Legal 500 EMEA 2018 in the following areas:

• Corporate and M&A
• Projects & Energy
• Dispute resolution
• Real estate and construction
• TMT

The following lawyers are recommended as specialists:

• Martin Řanda (Dispute Resolution, Real Estate and Construction)
• Jan Havel (Dispute Resolution, Projects and Energy, Real Estate and Construction)
• Tomáš Rydvan (Real Estate and Construction; TMT)
• Alois Šatava (Corporate and M&A)
• Matyáš Kužela (TMT)

The Legal 500 wrote: “Randa Havel Legal stands out for its ‘technical knowledge’.”, “Tomáš Rydvan has ‘a good sense of commerciality’.”, “Department head Jan Havel is ‘very pragmatic’.” – quotes from http://www.legal500.com/firms/14711/offices/19372

act legal Poland is recommended in several practice areas by The Legal 500 EMEA 2018. We would like to express our great acknowledgment towards our Clients who have shown support and provided us with recommendations in the Legal 500 ranking.

The following practice areas are recommended:

• Commercial, corporate and M&A
• Construction
• Capital markets – Debt
• Banking & Finance
• Dispute resolution
• Employment

Jacek Bieniak, Marek Wojnar, Marta Kosiedowska as well as Giuseppe La Rosa obtained individual recommendations in the Commercial, Corporate and M&A area. Jacek Bieniak, Michał Wielhorski and Marek Wojnar obtained individual recommendations in the Construction area.

The Legal 500 ranking wrote about us: “Act BSWW’s Jacek Bieniak combines ‘stand-out market knowledge with extremely efficient business orientation’. Marta Kosiedowska and Marek Wojnar are advising Nexus Ventures on investment contracts with Polkomtel. Giuseppe La Rosa is also recommended.” (http://www.legal500.com/c/poland/commercial-corporate-and-manda)

act BSWW advised Nielsen in the intragroup merger between its Polish subsidiaries i.e. ACNielsen Polska Sp. z o.o. with its seat in Warsaw and Brandbank (Poland) with its seat in Szczecin.

Marta Kosiedowska was the leading partner responsible for the project and was supported by associate Marlena Suchonos. The Warsaw team was responsible for preparation of the merger’s documentation and finalization of the process. 

”Nielsen is our long term client to whom we are providing day-to-day assistance with respect to contractual and corporate matters for several years now. We really appreciate that we were engaged in the process of intragroup merger and hope to provide additional value to Nielsen in other key matters,” said Marta Kosiedowska.