Experienced lawyers

We have a market-leading practice in litigating before Slovak courts as well as representing clients before local and regional arbitral institutions. Our offering covers the entire spectrum of commercial litigation and arbitration. We represent clients in high-profile cases in regulated industries, such as banking, telecom or energy; in construction and other commercial disputes as well as in landmark disputes with regulators. We also offer specialised advice in employment disputes (in particular dismissal cases involving senior employees) and IP disputes (such as trademark infringement cases for international pharmaceutical companies).

Arbitration is becoming the preferred method of dispute resolution for clients active in cross-border transactions or wishing to avoid local courts with a view to obtain a quicker determination of their disputes for reasonable cost. No matter how complex the proceedings and the type of sector involved our specialist arbitration team who combines in-depth local and sector knowledge with a truly global arbitration expertise is able to serve the clients’ needs.

We are an international law firm in Slovakia with a dedicated team of lawyers focusing solely on banking, capital markets and other finance law.

In the Banking and Finance category, we provide an overview of the three key products. The first is loans granted on the local Slovak market, or on the cross-border market and not only with a Slovak element. In this area we represent Slovak and foreign banks, but in certain cases we also provide our services to debtors. The second key product is transactions on the capital market, in particular issues of bonds and other securities. The third product comprises legal advice on regulation in the banking and finance market, and includes ISDA, derivatives, banking regulation and capital adequacy and the regulation of other financial institutions.

The Banking and Finance category in our opinion includes (and it logically should include) all three stated products (we understand that the only exception in the banking and finance field is the insolvency and restructuring, which forms a separate category). We think of ourselves as leaders on the Slovak market as to each product separately, when it comes to respective volumes of transactions) and that of all our competitors we are the only firm equally strong in all three product fields.

In addition to the above, which is the summary of local market, from Bratislava we provide sophisticated legal advice to our regional and Vienna based clients as well which are invariably governed by English law. We have advised on a number of major banking, finance and capital markets transactions over the past 12 months.

We are the leading M&A team in Slovakia, both in size and experience. We advise clients in various sectors, particularly energy, infrastructure, telecommunications/IT, manufacturing and financial institutions.

Our Corporate team is very highly regarded and also widely recognised as leading lawyers on the Slovak market.

Our experience in acting on the largest, most pioneering and most complex cross-border and local M&A transactions, and our understanding of current issues, continue to set us apart from our competitors. We have advised on most major real estate transactions over the last several years, acting for sellers, buyers, financiers, developers, and tenants. We also take advantage of our expertise in specialised niche areas to advise clients in the real estate sector on high-profile matters such as real estate related litigation and financing structures. The strength of our Slovak practice is demonstrated by our consistently strong rankings in all the major legal directories.

We won the 'International Law Firm of the Year 2019' title, a competition organised by leading Slovak economic magazine TREND, for the sixth year in row.

Our employment practice covers all aspects of employment law, from employment contracts and termination to employee privacy, data protection and secondments. We also handle employment matters for clients who are restructuring their businesses. We help corporate and finance clients alike prepare for and implement collective redundancies, with representation before labour authorities, and assist with the preparation of termination benefit packages and documentation. It’s this breadth of experience, combined with our in–depth knowledge of the local legal environment that enables us to provide first–rate legal advice and practical solutions to resolve our clients’ problems.

We are the only international law firm with a focused and settled IP practice in Slovakia. Despite being a small market, unlike our competitors, who often also advice on other fields of law (such as corporate or general M&A), our IP team specialises on IP. This specialisation means that less money needs to be spent on research and advice to clients can be delivered significantly quicker.

While we have advised clients on trademark issues for many years, recently our practice has been receiving increasing number of instructions in the field of patents (in particular pharmaceutical patents) and patent litigation. This is a rather unique feature on the market.

We cover intellectual property protection in Slovakia and Czech Republic as a “one-stop-shop” for both countries for some clients.

Our antitrust and competition lawyers have acted on some of the most interesting and unique antitrust matters in Slovakia. Their expertise covers everything from cartel investigations, leniency applications, abuse of dominance, cross–border mergers and acquisitions and antitrust litigation to client–tailored compliance training and competition seminars, State aid and public procurement.

Close links with local antitrust authorities give us an unrivalled understanding of an authority’s particular requirements. With a wide range of experience across a range of sectors, we also understand the complex and regulated industry sectors in which our clients’ businesses operate. In particular, we have in-depth expertise in financial services, telecoms, media, retail, technology, energy and utilities.

Our involvement in high-profile antitrust cases, knowledge of authorities and sector experience mean that our clients benefit from working with lawyers who are used to advising on cutting edge issues at the forefront of antitrust policy.

We have the largest team of energy law specialists in Slovakia, and are particularly strong in nuclear as well as EU and Slovak law energy regulation compliance. In recent years, we have been involved in essentially all the high-profile energy-related matters in the Slovak market.

Major energy deals always interact with specific practice areas – specialist knowledge is needed in M&A or banking transactions in the energy sector and energy matters often require detailed expertise in competition law, State aid, public procurement, litigation or arbitration. Our energy team comprises lawyers who are also specialists in these other areas, which enables us to provide high-value advice on all types of energy-related mandates, be it financing, M&A, high-profile litigation or crucial compliance with energy regulation and competition law. Recently, we have become involved in a number of high-profile litigations resulting mostly from regulatory mishaps of the Slovak energy regulator, the Office for Regulation of Network Industries. The most prominent example are lawsuits filed by renewable energy producers against electricity distribution companies seeking the repayment of a tariff called G-component following a controversial decision of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic. Working on these cases gives us an opportunity to showcase the seamless blend of our expertise in energy regulation and litigation, both administrative and commercial.