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On October 30, 2017, CEE Legal Matters reported that South African investment fund Coast2Coast had acquired Polish soup and pate manufacturer Profi — one of several recent CEE investments. Coast2Coast's Regional Counsel CEE Anna Wawrzynczak agreed to answer our questions about the recent acquisitions.

On February 28, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that NEPI Rockcastle PLC had taken over a commercial building in the city center of Sibiu, Romania, for shopping mall development. We reached out to Robert Ionita, Head of Legal at NEPI Rockcastle, to get his perspective on the deal.

On February 26, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that Timex Card had sold 51 % of its shares to UTA GmbH. Agnieszka Slowiak, Chief Legal Counsel at Timex Card, spoke with us about the deal.

Jovan Velkovski is the Head of Legal at JAT (Yugoslav Airlines) Tehnika, an Aircraft Maintenance Repair & Overhaul Center in Belgrade. Prior to joining the company, he worked as a Senior Legal Advisor at Privredna Banka Beograd, where he gained professional experience in bankruptcy cases.

On January 8, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that the X5 Retail Group had acquired a supermarket chain operating under the "O’Key" brand in Russia. Later we learned that the acquired supermarket chain was LLC Razvitiye Malykh Formatov. We invited Tatiana Sumarokova, Head of M&A Legal Support Division at X5 Retail Group, to share her thoughts on X5's cooperation with external counsel in the transaction.

Linda Szegvari is the Chief Legal Counsel of MET Hungary, an energy trading company that was established in 2007. The company is a subsidiary of the MET Group, which is present in 28 markets.

On January 2, 2018, CEE Legal Matters reported that Czech pharmacy chain Dr. Max acquired the entire A&D Pharma network in Romania, in a transaction that has been shortlisted for CEE Deal of the Year 2017 in the country. While the transaction awaits approval from authorities, we reached out to Ivo Senkyrik, Head of Group M&A at Dr. Max, to find out how his team made the deal happen.

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.