On 11 May 2017, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Mr. Maciej Szpunar, issued a landmark opinion on legal qualification of Uber, the US ride hailing app, claiming that, from the perspective of the EU law, Uber should be characterized and treated as a transport company rather than as a mere information technology provider. The question that was posed to the EU highest court and that, according to Advocate General, needs to be assessed on a rather technical level, deals with Uber’s standing within the EU regulatory framework. Although non-binding, the opinion given by the […]
Details
Gecić Law is proud to sponsor this year’s annual job fair organized by Belgrade’s group of the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Law. This year’s event “Lawyers at Work” with the theme “Choose Your Career” will be held from May 9th until May 11th, 2017. Please feel free to visit our booth from 11:00-15:00 each day and bring your questions and CVs. Additionally, Bogdan Gecić, partner at Gecić Law will be discussing his professional experience at the closing session along with other panelists. This session focusing on law profession and career will be […]
Details
On April 27, 2017, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”), Ms. Juliane Kokott, issued an opinion stating that not every creation of joint ventures ought to be under control of the European authorities: only formation of those joint ventures which are to be entirely autonomous, full-function entities should be subject to the official scrutiny. As per words of the opinion’s respected author, said issue, although technical in essence, holds a “practical significance” for national and European watchdogs on the one hand, and market undertakings, on the other, given that it tackles the matter of interpretation […]
Details
Businesses beware – imposing fines of up to 10% of the company’s Serbia-originated annual income in respect to enforcing Data Protection compliance will be one of the measures available to the Commissioner1 as of June 1, 2017, when the new Administrative Procedure Act is set to come into force. The changes to the Administrative Enforcement Procedure are going to allow this Data Protection Authority to enforce its decisions by fining companies in an amount considerably higher than the maximum enforcement-related fine of RSD 200,000.00 (approx. EUR 1,600.00) allowed by the current statute. This means that all companies will, if ordered […]
Details
MARKET DISRUPTOR – THE YOUNGEST LAW FIRM TO ACHIEVE A TIER 1 RANKING We are proud to announce The Legal 500 EMEA 2017 annual rankings of the premier law firms in Serbia are published and Gecić Law was awarded the coveted ‘Top Tier’ status, granted to firms that achieved Tier 1 ranking in a particular practice. The firm ranked Tier 1 in the field of Competition Law and the firm’s Commercial, Corporate and M&A practice was ranked Tier 2. These rankings represent an unprecedented achievement, especially given the fact that we are the youngest law firm in Serbia to receive a […]
Details
On March 29, 2017, the European Commission (“Commission”) officially blocked the third attempt to implement the merger between the London Stock Exchange Group (“LSE”) and Deutsche Börse AG. Said decision created an insurmountable obstacle to further cooperation of the two groups which was aimed at creating a European powerhouse able to compete with strong American and fast-emerging Asian financial markets. The long planned merger was to give rise to the world’s largest exchange by total income, the biggest for equities listings, and to an entity that would control more derivatives trades than any other entity in the world.1 It would […]
Details
Gecić Law is pleased to announce today that Jovan Rajković joined our Belgrade office where he will head the newly established Media & IP practice. Jovan focuses on complex intellectual property disputes, with particular expertise in media. He handled a plethora of matters arising out of client’s need for compliance with increasingly complex regulation, infringement, dispute resolution in the field of intellectual property and media law, as well as contracts in the area of intellectual property and media, both as publishing contracts, licenses and other contracts which include different issues related to intellectual property and cooperation in the field of media services. […]
Details
On January 30, 2017, the German competition authority (Ger. Bundeskartellamt) has decided to give final clearance to the implementation of the plan previously announced by two carriers, Lufthansa and airberlin, directed at the wet-lease of 38 aircrafts for the period of six years. Under the current state of affairs, there are no firm grounds for the subject agreement to be prohibited, since, as it was emphasized by Bundeskartellamt, it was not proven that it would in fact result in an actual distortion of competition. In this context, apart from reaffirming the need for a presumption of competition violation to be […]
Details
Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition (the “Commission“) has fined EPS Distribution, a sole electric power distribution system operator, for the abuse of dominant position in the amount of 330 million RSD (cca EUR 2.7 million). This is the highest antitrust fine imposed by the Serbian regulator. Having established the EPS Distribution indeed held dominant position, the Commission found several abuses of dominant position and in particular: As a result of non-transparent business policy, the company EPS Supply was placed in an advantageous position compared to competitors. Subject behavior was reflected in (i) the fact that unlike other suppliers, only EPS […]
Details
On November 8 2016, the French Competition Authority (Competition Authority) imposed a fine in the dizzying amount of €80 million on Altice Luxembourg, a telecom-investment company, and its French subsidiary SFR on the basis of their ‘gun-jumping’ activities during the 2014 acquisition of SFR and Virgin Mobile. After an unannounced probe, the regulator decided to institute said fine upon two companies in order to punish them for implementing their mergers prematurely, and to effectuate a deterrent for this type of antitrust activities among other companies. The unprecedented fine imposed on SFR and Altice is the first of its kind to […]
Details