Practice Area

We offer

The Law Firm Škubla & Partneri provides legal services mainly in the following areas of law.

Mergers and acquisitions, corporate law
Competition
Media
Property and development
Labour law
Private equity
Disputes and arbitration
PPP and public procurement
Economic crime
Health care and health insurance
Tax law
Intellectual & IT
Banking and finances
Personal Data Protection

Mergers and acquisitions, corporate law

We are particularly competent in the fields of corporate law and M&A, where we oversee biggest M&A transactions, where our partners are renowned law firms from the Magic Circle representing counterparties.

Selected areas:

Structuring transactions in terms of tax and transactional optimization including the involvement of international transactional vehicles (Jersey, Cyprus, etc.);
Share deals / asset deals;
Mandatory takeover bids;
„Leveraged“ acquisitions;
Comprehensive transactional management including assistance in formulating indicative / binding offers and in fulfilling post-closing covenants;
Post-closing re-structuralization / debt push-down;
Mergers including cross-border mergers directed towards Slovakia or towards foreign jurisdictions;
Corporate governance & compliance;
Private equity;
Cash pooling.

Our domain is dealing with complex shareholders’ relations (dividend policies, call and put options, shoot-out mechanisms, i.e. the means to terminate shareholder’s participation, Drag-Along and Tag-Along Rights).

Competition

Our clients are among the biggest 'players' in the Central European market in various business sectors. Dealing with competition law issues is thus the necessary part of our work.

Notifications of concentrations are in fact a matter of routine for us. However, we also carry out in-depth analyses of dynamically developing markets such as e-commerce and online advertising, which have not yet been examined in detail by the EU competition authorities.

Cartels. We provide prophylactic support in preventing cartels as well as subsequent support in implementing leniency programmes or in connection with dawn raids carried out by competition authorities or subsequent official investigations. We negotiate with competition authorities about settlement conditions, which could bring clients substantial savings on fines.

Vertical agreements and block exemptions. We provide a wide range of assistance in structuring contractual relationships from the competition law perspective both at horizontal level (between competitors) and vertical level (within one distribution chain).

Unfair competition and consumer disputes. Our long-term focus is on dealing with consumer disputes, where we have achieved expertise and know-how.

State aid. We advise clients on extensive and complex rules on state aid and using of EU funds. Our services include representing clients before the European Commission in matters of unlawful state aid as well as providing support in applying for state aid.

Media

It has not been possible to reduce media law to the regulation under the Press Act already for a while.

We have extensive experience with the protection of personality of individuals as well as with representing a renowned publishing house to which we provide comprehensive legal services including litigation management for disputes over the freedom of expression and protection of personality.

In particular, our advisory services focus on the rapidly growing e-commerce and online news. On a daily basis we deal with a large scale of issues including legal aspects of video on demand, online advertising, copyrights, consumer protection, protection of personal data and regulation of media ownership.

Property and development

We accompany our clients throughout all stages of property deals in all their complexity (including financing). Our services include analysing investment plans to ensure compliance with spatial planning documentation, dealing with unit land consolidations, acquisitions of property (brownfield / greenfield) or other forms of property settlement by developers of the property concerned, comprehensive support in permission procedures (including building demolition, land use permission, planning permission and final building approval) and procedures related to them (for example EIA), preparation of contracts (contract for works, FIDIC standards, lease contracts, contracts of sale of apartments etc.) as well as representation of clients in negotiations with contractual partners, participants of permission procedures and local authorities.

Labour law

Our portfolio of services includes in particular:

Employment-related agenda (employment agreements, agreements on material liability etc.);
Bonus schemes, proposing KPI (key performance indicators);
Termination of employment relationships and mass layoffs;
Consulting or copyright contracts;
Management or copyright contracts;
Restructuralizations, transfers of organisational units, organisational changes;
Relations with trade unions, collective agreements and collective bargaining;
Labour permits, secondment of employees;
Social security and health insurance contributions, taxation o f employees;
Internal policies and regulations (labour, organisational and wage policies);
Occupational safety and health;
Whistle-blowing regulation;
Labour disputes;
Protection of personal data and privacy.

Private equity

One of our most important clients is a leading private equity financial group in the CEE region. Thanks to this long-term cooperation we have obtained unrivalled experience in the area of private equity investments.

Disputes and arbitration

Court and out-of-court settlement of disputes is one of our biggest strengths. We represent clients in lawsuits involving substantial nominal values of disputes. Our specialization is corporate litigation with the emphasis on shareholders’ disputes. We possess unique experience as a result of representation of clients in investment (BIT – bilateral investment treaty) disputes against the state.

PPP and public procurement

Economic issues are becoming more and more regulated both at national level and European level. In particular, we focus on public procurement, PPP projects and energetics. In the area of public procurement, we provide comprehensive support to both clients and public authorities. Our services include establishing bidding consortia and drafting or annotating contracts including concession contracts.

Economic crime

We combine our economic, tax and accounting know-how with the expertise in criminal law. The detailed knowledge of these two areas (i.e. the economics and criminal law) enables us to provide qualified advice in matters concerning economic crime (white collar crimes).

Health care and health insurance

Health care and health insurance are one of the most regulated fields of law. Our firm possesses unique know-how in the area of medical law and especially in the area of health insurance law. We help clients to solve most current questions and issues, whether they concern the transfer of the insurance stock, commenting on legislative changes or electronization of medical documentation.

Tax law

The commercial side of any transaction is always our main priority. We never lose sight of this aim, while we help clients to adopt optimal transactional and project solutions, which are not only compliant with applicable legal norms, but which also respect economic goals of our clients.

We possess unrivalled know-how in establishing international corporate and transactional structures in countries such as Cyprus, Jersey and Lichtenstein.

Since we understand clients and their needs, we help them to set up transactional and acquisition processes in order to provide to the clients with optimal solutions, while taking into account the applicable tax regime and the protection of ownership.

In the context of acquisitions we not only place emphasis on the acquisition process itself, but also provide detailed pre- and post-acquisition advice (including financial assistance and debt push-down).

We also represent clients in tax disputes.

Intellectual & IT

Our clients are conducting businesses with a high added value. The protection of intellectual property is one of the main preconditions for successful growth and preservation of their commercial activities.

Therefore, we provide comprehensive legal services ranging from forensic audits and protection of clients against unfair competition, to solutions relating to trademarks and domain names as well as issues of copyright, publication on the web, protection of personal data and IT security.

Online business has become a strategic sector. In this connection we are involved in the preparation of licencing agreements and agreements for works for the purpose of software development and service level agreements.

Banking and finances

In the context of loan transactions (implemented on the basis of LMA standards or as tailor-made contractual solutions) we represent both debtors and creditors as well as syndicates of banks.

We provide legal services in the area of capital markets including issuance and transfer of securities. In addition, we provide advice regarding banking regulation on issues ranging from prudential requirements for capital adequacy to regulatory aspects of acquisition of banks.

Our specialization is project financing involving both development projects and acquisition projects.

Personal Data Protection

GDPR, the full name of which is the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), entered into force on 24 May 2016 and has been applied since 25 May 2018. GDPR replaced the domestic rules implementing the directive concerning the protection of personal data (95/46/EC) and unified legislation for all the member states of the European Union.

To ensure compliance with a comprehensive piece of legislation such as GDPR is a difficult task. Our office has extensive experience with the implementation of GDPR for clients from various business sectors and our qualified professionals are ready to help you with this task. We provide comprehensive legal advice to clients in connection with the implementation of GDPR, in particular:

Carrying out complete data audit and preparation of the GAP analysis – this phase is necessary prior to the implementation of GDPR and includes the analysis of complete data flow at a client and the analysis of the so-called risk areas;
Preparation and revision of the required documentation, especially internal regulations (to ensure that data are processed by employees in compliance with GDPR, regarding a procedure for reporting security incidents, replies to requests of data subjects etc.), agreements with business partners and customers, records of processing activities and other materials required in case of an inspection by the Office;
Carrying out data protection impact assessment (DPIA);
Assistance in connection with system settings and everyday processes at clients in compliance with GDPR;
Trainings of employees concerning the correct personal data processing;
Legal advice in connection with notifying personal data breaches;
Comprehensive legal support and representing during inspections carried out by the Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic;
Representing before courts.