Radu Cotarcea

Yelda Dogan Yasarturk has become the Head of Legal, Middle East & Africa at GSK Consumer Healthcare.

Ece Gursoy has become the Chief Legal Officer at Global Ports Holding plc, the world’s largest independent cruise port operator.

On January 26, 2018, CEELM reported on a joint investment by Banca Transilvania and the EBRD to acquire more than 66% of shares in Victoriabank, the third largest bank in the Republic of Moldova. Bogdan Plesuvescu, the Executive Director and Chief Legal Officer for Banca Transilvania agreed to provide some insight on the transaction, which remains contingent on approval by local authorities.

Basak Gurbuz is Counsel with The Walt Disney Company in Turkey, a company she joined in August 2015. Before going in-house, she worked for eight years at Gun + Partners and another year and a half at Pekin & Bayar.

Andrzej Posniak started his career in law at CMS in 2003 as a corporate trainee and, step by step, become a qualified tax advisor, then a Partner and Head of the Tax Team in CMS Warsaw's Corporate Department. In addition, Andrzej also fulfills General Counsel and Risk Manager roles for the firm in Poland. CEE Legal Matters sat down with Andrzej to learn more about his unique role.

On December 22, 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported on EUR 1.9 billion acquisition of UPC Austria from Liberty Global by T-Mobile. T-Mobile’s team was led by Vice President Legal, Regulatory & Interception Anja Tretbar-Bustorf, who spoke to us about the deal.

On November 3, 2017, CEELM reported that CEE Attorneys Romania had helped logistics company EshopWedrop Group — part of Xpediator Plc — establish a relationship with franchisees in Albania and Cyprus. We spoke with Mircea Bandean, Managing Director at EshopWedrop, for more information. 

On October 24, 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported that Mellanox Technologies, a software developer headquartered in Israel, would be opening an R&D center in Kyiv. We reached out to Gideon Rosenberg, Deputy General Counsel & Vice President of Legal Affairs at Mellanox, for more information.

On October 25, 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported that Cobalt had advised the Otravo Group — a subsidiary of Waterland Private Equity Investment — on its acquisition of 100% shares in Interneto Partneris, an online ticket seller in the Baltics. The transaction was led on the buyer side by Waterland's Senior Investment Manager William Ford, who spoke with us about the deal. 

On October 9, 2017, CEELM reported that the Globalworth real estate company had invested outside Romania for the first time by acquiring Griffin Premium Real Estate in Poland. Catalin Tirziu, Head of Legal at Globalworth, agreed to share his insight on the transaction. 

Hungarian lawyer Peter Paroczi is the Director Counsel at Harman International, the US-based consumer electronics company. He joined Harman in Budapest earlier this year, after spending four years in private practice and then another seven in-house, first with Samsung Electronics, then at E.On. He agreed to answer some of our questions about his career.

On October 4, 2017, CEELM reported that Everlegal had advised UDP Renewables, part of the UDP development group, on its development of the Dymerska Solar Power Plant in Ukraine. We reached out to UDP Renewables CFO Kiril Bondar, who manages the project. 

In the modern world, people are regularly faced with new challenges.

Who knows lawyers better than other lawyers? In this issue’s Face-to-Face feature, Maravela & Asociatii Partners Gelu Maravela and Alina Popescu interview Mihaela Popescu, the former Head of Legal at Mercedes-Benz Financial Services.

Gokce Turkoglu has joined Deloitte Turkey as its new General Counsel.

We are now only two days away from the Hungary General Counsel Summit. CEE Legal Matters spoke with Erika Papp, Partner and Head of Banking and International Finance, Hungary with CMS, one of the sponsors of the conference to hear her thoughts on the upcoming event. 

As the CEE Legal Matters team prepares for the upcoming Hungary General Counsel Summit, we sat down with Daniel Gera of Schoenherr to learn about the panel discussion he will be leading titled "Preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation - Challenge or Opportunity." 

On August 8, 2017, CEELM reported that Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld Hlawati had advised red-stars.com in connection with its acquisition of 25% of the shares of ecosio GmbH. We reached out to Red Star’s CEO, Thomas Streimelweger, for more information about the deal.

Who knows more about lawyers than other lawyers? In the Face-to-Face feature, we step back and allow private practitioners to sit down directly with in-house counsel to discuss their challenges, strategies, and solutions. 

Liechtensteinische Landesbank has hired Martina Neubauer to head its compliance function in Austria. 

Veolia Polska has hired Wojciech Dmochowski as its new Legal Department Director in Warsaw. 

Invitel Group has hired Balazs Fazekas as its new Director of Legal and Regulatory Affairs in Budapest. 

Akos Toth has joined Porsche Holding Gmbh as its new Country Compliance and AML Officer in Hungary. 

Zoltan Kozma has been hired as the Legal Director for Hungary at Microsoft. 

On June 20, 2017, CEELM reported that mBank sold its majority shares in housing project company mLocum to another housing company called Archicom S.A. in Poland. We reached out to Monika Powroznik, Deputy Director for mBank, to enquire about the cooperation with her external counsel on this specific sale.

Gergo Budai has joined Vodafone in Hungary as its new Deputy CEO, responsible for legal, regulatory, security, PR, and wholesale.

David Kozma has been promoted to Head of Legal Affairs at UNIQA Biztosito in Hungary.

On December 7th, 2016, CEE Legal Matters reported that AmRest Holdings had acquired 15 KFC restaurants and the license to operate and develop the KFC brand in Germany. We invited Dawid Ksiazcziak, Chief Legal officer for AmRest Holdings, to reflect on the KFC acquisitions.

HB Reavis has promoted Radovan Pistek to General Counsel and Member of the Senior Executive Management. 

Telenor has hired Andras Losonci as Legal Counsel within the Commercial Legal team.