In a crucial legal victory for the European Commission, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has upheld the Commission’s decision that Apple must repay up to €13 billion in back taxes to Ireland. This ruling, issued in September 2024, reaffirms the Commission’s original 2016 judgment, marking a significant step in the European Union‘s effort to crack down on favorable tax arrangements for multinational corporations. 

Under which circumstances are controllers and processors not required to maintain records of personal data processing activities? The Personal Data Protection Law, modeled on the GDPR, sets out exceptions to the obligation for organizations with fewer than 250 employees to keep processing records. While this acknowledges the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises, ensuring they are not unnecessarily burdened with additional costs, the number of employees is not the sole criterion for exemption from the record-keeping obligation.

Gecic Law has appointed Miodrag Jevtic to Partner.

Contributed by JPM & Partners.

MMD Associates has advised Beam Global on its acquisition of Telcom.

When developing their models, AI providers use various data sets. Sometimes these are provided by their clients, as in the case of tailor-made chatbots, and sometimes the models are trained on licensed or even publicly available data.

Harrisons has advised the French Development Agency (Agence Francaise de Developpement, AFD) on a credit facility to Serbian electric transmission system operator Elektromreza Srbije (EMS).

Vulic Law has advised Cofis on its sale of the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Belgrade to an undisclosed buyer.

As we wrote in our earlier article, according to the decision made by the German data protection authority at the end of last year, the use of the “pay-or-okay” principle is generally allowed. This model involves a cookie notice (via a so-called cookie banner) on a website, giving the user the choice between:

Recently, the Court of Appeal in Belgrade, in its ruling No. Gž4 168/22 dated May 30, 2024, addressed the issue of determining copyright infringement in a case where, at the time of publication of the work, a different author was credited as the author.

Moravcevic, Vojnovic and Partners in cooperation with Schoenherr has advised Integral Venture Partners on its acquisition of a 50% stake in EsoTron. Karanovic & Partners advised the founders of EsoTron on the sale.

Radovanovic Stojanovic & Partners has advised British American Tobacco on the sidestream merger of its Serbian subsidiaries: British American Tobacco South-East Europe DOO Beograd, as the transferring entity, and British American Tobacco Vranje AD, as the surviving entity.

In Judgment No. Rev₂ 1986/22 dated November 24, 2023, the Supreme Court took the position that the days during which the employee was on sick leave cannot be counted in the eight-day period within which the employee is obligated to respond to the offer of an annex to the employment contract, starting from the date of receipt of the offer.

JPM & Partners has advised the founders of the Sidro philanthropic foundation on its launch in Serbia.

NKO Partners has advised Sopharma on the acquisition of Pharmanova. Radovanovic Stojanovic & Partners reportedly advised Pharmanova.

Dragana Poljak has joined AirSerbia as its new Ethics, Compliance, and Corporate Law Manager.

In a recent legal resolution, an author, a mechanical engineer employed to oversee the printing machinery at a prominent publishing house, found himself at the heart of an unexpected ghostwriting controversy.

In The Debrief, our Practice Leaders across CEE share updates on recent and upcoming legislation, consider the impact of recent court decisions, showcase landmark projects, and keep our readers apprised of the latest developments impacting their respective practice areas.