In The Corner Office, we ask Managing Partners at law firms across Central and Eastern Europe about their backgrounds, strategies, and responsibilities. This time around, we asked: With autumn being a peak conference period, what are your annual “cannot miss” conferences during the fall season and why?

In the shifting terrain of the Balkan legal sector – particularly within the realm of intellectual property – 2025 has emerged as a year of strategic recalibration. While the broader Central and Eastern European (CEE) region continues to witness law firm mergers and lateral expansions, the Balkans are carving out a distinct narrative: one marked by regulatory tightening, enforcement innovation, and a growing appetite for regional cooperation.

Following the successful 2025 Hungarian General Counsel Summit in Budapest, on October 21, 2025, CEE Legal Matters brought the Balkan General Counsel Summit to Belgrade, gathering leading in-house counsel and legal professionals from across the region.

With preparations for the 2025 CEE Legal Matters Balkan General Counsel Summit in full swing, Zivko Mijatovic & Partners Of Counsel Vladimir Marenovic shares his thoughts about the upcoming event and what he's looking forward to the most.

In The Corner Office, we ask Managing Partners at law firms across Central and Eastern Europe about their backgrounds, strategies, and responsibilities. This time around, we asked: If you were to hire a new receptionist tomorrow, what is the one most important trait you look for and why?

Belgrade is gearing up to host Expo Belgrade 2027 (Expo 2027), a first-of-its-kind specialized exhibition for Serbia and the Western Balkans. With major infrastructure projects underway and over EUR 1 billion in projected gains, the event promises both opportunity and challenges, according to JPM & Partners Senior Partner Jelena Gazivoda and Zivko Mijatovic & Partners Of Counsel Mina Jovanovic Ninkovic.

With sorrow, the fashion world bid farewell to Giorgio Armani, the visionary Italian designer. Born in postwar Italy, Armani initially studied medicine and served briefly in the army before starting his fashion career at La Rinascente and later designing menswear for Cerruti. In 1975, he founded Giorgio Armani S.p.A., which grew into a global fashion empire, including Armani Exchange, Emporio Armani, Armani Privé, Armani Casa, and luxury ventures in hotels and furniture.

In The Corner Office, we ask Managing Partners at law firms across Central and Eastern Europe about their backgrounds, strategies, and responsibilities. This time around, we asked: What is the ratio between business development activities and billable hours for Partners within your team, on average?

After 17 years of being regulated under a unified legal framework alongside other industrial property rights, trademarks in Albania will now be governed by a dedicated legal instrument.

Many products on the market today are protected by geographical indications (GIs). GIs serve as a mark of quality, assuring consumers of the unique characteristics, taste, and origin of a product. This is especially important for food and beverages, where specific taste profiles often drive consumer loyalty. For example, Parmigiano Reggiano is celebrated for its complex, layered flavour with nutty notes – qualities that keep consumers coming back.

In The Corner Office, we ask Managing Partners at law firms across Central and Eastern Europe about their backgrounds, strategies, and responsibilities. This time around, we asked: For 2025, what is the one sector or industry in the country that shows the most promise for growth, and why?

If you have received a Cease and Desist (C&D) letter, it usually means that you have violated someone else’s intellectual property rights. However, this may not necessarily be the case if you are doing business in Croatia.

In the entertainment industry, protecting creative assets isn’t just about legal rights—it’s about building a brand. While copyright automatically protects movies and characters as original works, it doesn’t always go far enough. That’s where trademarks step in.

Since 2016, the term “Black Friday” has been registered as a trademark in Germany, granting exclusive rights to a single company, Super Union Holdings Ltd. of Hong Kong, for its use in advertising. This registration covered over 900 goods and services, restricting other businesses from using the term in their promotions. However, recent legal developments have definitively resolved this contentious issue.

Unlike many neighboring countries, the Trademark Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina explicitly addresses bad faith trademark applications as both relative grounds for refusal and as a basis for contesting a trademark through court proceedings. In other words, trademark applications filed contrary to the principles of good faith and fair dealing can be challenged either through an opposition before the Institute for Intellectual Property or by filing a lawsuit before the competent court. While this dual system theoretically provides two distinct avenues of recourse, practical experience shows that both mechanisms tend to merge into a single, judicially driven process. Below, we analyze the key lessons drawn from recent case law concerning bad faith trademark filings.

In The Corner Office, we ask Managing Partners at law firms across Central and Eastern Europe about their backgrounds, strategies, and responsibilities. With managing firm clients being a critical aspect of firms’ operations, we asked: What are the three most important elements when onboarding a new client?

Serbia’s 2020 Trademark Law introduced a novel provision to local law: the trademark holders have been explicitly empowered to claim profit surrender in cases where the infringement was not intentional or grossly negligent.

The concept of exhaustion of trademark rights is a nuanced aspect of intellectual property law that might seem counterintuitive to those unfamiliar with the field.