Our expertise in Slovakia

Products and services

Corporate and M&A

Our Slovakia Corporate/M&A practice is market leading. Our clients turn to us for advice on the full range of corporate matters. These include setting up unregulated investment structures and deal-specific SPVs, co-investments/joint ventures, (cross-border) mergers, acquisitions and disposals, restructurings and reorganisations, equity listings and stock exchange-related work, liquidations and corporate litigation work (eg, shareholders’ disputes, post-acquisition claims, joint venture disputes and director liability issues).

Our Corporate department is known for working on sophisticated cross-border or landmark local M&A projects. The Corporate team advises not only on prominent M&A deals, but also the on the formation of JVs, venture capital deals, private equity and fund (LPA) structures and general corporate law advice.

The team has been working on deals across a broad spectrum of sectors, including TMT, financial institutions, energy, infrastructure, retail and real estate.

Banking and Finance

Our Slovak Finance practice covers the entire spectrum of banking and finance products with a particular focus on, among other things, general corporate finance, project finance, real estate finance, financial leasing, asset finance and leveraged finance. We are experienced in both domestic and cross-border transactions and projects. In addition, our team regularly advises on matters of debt restructuring and insolvency proceedings. Our client base includes banks, asset management firms and funds, large international corporates and public entities. Further, from our Allen & Overy Bratislava office, we provide sophisticated legal advice to our regional and Vienna-based clients as well as through our team of English law-qualified solicitors led by Attila K Csongrady.

Litigation and Dispute Resolution

Our Dispute Resolution department comprises a number of specialist lawyers representing clients before courts and arbitral tribunals. Our expertise covers all aspects of commercial litigation, arbitration – including international commercial arbitration (be it governed by Slovak or foreign substantive laws) and investment treaty arbitration, public law and energy disputes, employment litigation, IP/TMT litigation and construction disputes. Our team includes a pro bono litigation lawyer. In dispute resolution, Allen & Overy CEE offices benefit from close collaboration among the CEE specialists where the CEE Dispute Resolution practice is led by Martin Magál. Our dispute resolution expertise is also greatly enhanced by expertise from the global Allen & Overy dispute resolution network. Our litigators maintain high profiles in the dispute resolution field; Martin Magál  regularly sits as arbitrator in disputes under ICC, VIAC, LCIA and DIS, and Lucia Raimanová sits on the coveted Board of the Vienna International Arbitral Centre (VIAC) and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London.

Employment and Benefits

Employees are often a client’s most precious, and expensive, assets. Protecting those employees, while ensuring that business needs are minded, requires lawyers with a wide range of expertise in both advisory and corporate transactional work. Our Employment practice covers all aspects of employment law, from employment contracts, employment termination, employee privacy, data protection and secondments to high-class litigation work. 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. Clients are becoming interested in seeking legal advice in relation to the implementation of various diversity, equity and inclusion strategies aimed at fair treatment of diverse groups of employees in the workplace.

Restructuring and Insolvency

We advise on the full range of restructuring and insolvency-related issues, including corporate restructurings and reorganisations. Our clients are mainly banks and creditors and, in restructurings, the borrowers that initiated the proceedings themselves. Our lawyers are recognised for their ability to advise on highly complex transactions, including pioneering restructuring transactions in Slovakia.

International Capital Markets

We advise underwriters, arrangers and issuers on all aspects of international capital markets transactions. Among our clients are major international financial institutions and corporations. Acting as counsel to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), we are ideally placed to advise our clients on derivative trades involving sophisticated set-off and netting mechanisms and complex collateral arrangements. Our practice has extensive experience of advising in areas such as debt and equity capital markets, securitisations, derivatives and structured finance, and high yield.

Financial Regulatory

Regulatory changes and developments are affecting all parts of the financial services sector. Our Bratislava Financial Services Regulatory practice has a long track record of guiding financial services companies through an increasingly complex regulatory landscape where national and international regulations may interact or conflict. Our team’s technical expertise on critical policy issues is complemented by extensive practical experience. We regularly advise clients on how to structure themselves and carry on their business, including with respect to obtaining relevant licences, in compliance with, among others, EMIR, FATCA, CRDIV, MiFID II, CSDR and other recent and developing regulatory frameworks.

Intellectual Property

We are the only international law firm in Slovakia with a truly specialised IP practice. Our IP department lawyers do not work in other areas apart from IP (and technology law). This specialisation means that less money needs to be spent on research and advice to clients can be delivered significantly quicker. We have experience of advising clients on cutting-edge transactions – not only on the Slovak market – as our lawyers often coordinate strategic cross-border transactions in Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to assisting our clients, our lawyers actively take part in various initiatives by local associations and chambers of commerce which are aimed at enhancing and improving the business environment. They provide comments to proposals for new legislation and thus contribute to the improvement of the quality of the legislative environment in Slovakia.

Competition

Our Competition practice is particularly active in the telecom and energy sector, regularly advising our clients on State aid and other competition-related issues. Furthermore, we are traditionally very strong in the area of State aid, supporting a number of foreign investors who have received investment incentives but are struggling to meet the conditions under which the incentives were granted. The team also has extensive experience in public procurement matters. Senior Associate Peter Šťastný chairs the American Chamber of Commerce’s Public Procurement Task Force, which plays a major role in shaping the Slovak public procurement legislation, regularly commenting on amendments to the Public Procurement Act and negotiating such amendments with the Public Procurement Office and other government bodies. Our Competition department benefits from the unmatched all-around capabilities of its Bratislava office, which is ideally placed to advise our clients on all aspects of their business. Our competition law capability is also greatly enhanced by close cooperation within the Allen & Overy competition network, especially among CEE offices. Our CEE competition law experts hold virtual meetings on a weekly basis, sharing information and knowledge, and regularly organise joint regional events and initiatives.

Energy

Our team brings together a vast collection of experience on a number of transactions on a regional (CEE) as well as local level. In Slovakia, we have market-leading experience in the energy sector. We have an integrated team capable of providing a seamless service, both in terms of product and sector expertise, and in providing both English and Slovak law advice “under one roof” – all of this from our Bratislava office. Our main strength lies in our ability to combine seamlessly our unrivalled experience in energy regulation with our litigation, corporate and financing capabilities. We are thus able to advise our clients on any aspect of their business as a one-stop shop, as well as provide advice on particularly complex matters requiring crossover skills and expertise. As a law firm, we are very active in regulated sectors. Significant investment over many years is required to gain sectoral regulatory expertise and experience. We have made that investment and now are well placed to utilise it to the advantage of our clients.

Life Sciences

Life sciences continues to be an important sector in Slovakia and we are privileged to advise several clients across the industry, including in the pharmaceuticals, biotech, consumer health, medtech, diagnostics and healthcare segments. We have a proven track record of advising clients on strategic licensing, joint ventures, collaboration and commercial agreements and lifecycle management projects.

Real Estate

We have acted on the largest, most pioneering and most complex real estate transactions in Slovakia and other CEE countries over the last several years. We combine a thorough knowledge of the industry with legal expertise in all practice areas that are relevant for real estate clients, and we regularly advise sellers, buyers, financiers, developers and tenants. We leverage our experience and expertise in M&A and banking transactions to advise real estate clients on these types of transactions in their sector. 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.

Pro bono

A law firm’s profitability is only one measure of its success. At Allen & Overy we are committed to using our collective legal skills not only to assist our clients in their business transactions, but also to fulfil our most basic obligations as responsible members of the community in which we work. As well as the contribution of our own people, we partner with charities, NGOs and community organisations to bring about change. We focus on areas where our skills are best used, where our money can best be spent and where we are most able to make an impact.