Schönherr’s law office is undergoing a budgeting process and does not intend to change its income forecasts for 2009. “From the personnel’s point of view, I believe that this “crisis” might even have a positive effect on the growing law offices, as the legal market shall settle down for the moment”, stated Markus Piuk (photo), equity partner within the local company.

The lawyer stated that, in spite of the international financial crisis, at a local plan, certain fields of activity shall not be affected. “The infrastructure (including energy), regulatory (including EU-law) are growing as we speak, particularly at a regional level. We have teams of Romanian lawyers working on infrastructure projects in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro. I believe that several governments in the region shall support national economies with infrastructure projects, i.e. “deficit spending”, according to Keynes – to create or save work places”, claims Markus Piuk.

Under such circumstances, according to him, no decrease in the demand of lawyer-related services shall occur. “however, the fields in which the lawyer-related services shall be requested are to be changed: probably, at this point, companies specializing in real estate developments or IPO’s are reconsidering the business line”, explains the equity partner in the regional law office.

Obviously, there have been “initiated” certain transactions during the last 4 months, which “froze” once the crisis grew. “Certain real estate have fell due to the fact that they stopped being profitable due to high financing costs. In M&A, many already agreed conditions have to be renegotiated by the parties due to the crisis ", states Piuk.

However, the legal consultancy demand for transactions did not decrease, claims Schönherr’s lawyer. "Until now, no field of business has seen any decrease; however we are expecting a reorientation of the business with fewer real estate and M&A projects, particularly as the private equity investors are concerned. In Banking&Finance, we are dealing with demands from finance restructuring ", stated Markus Piuk.

The most important transactions assisted by the Bucharest Office of Schoenherr International Law Firm in the first semester of 2008 were the acquisition of Bere Mures by Heineken, (approximately EUR 150 million), the sale of Romanian Insurance Company Unita belonging to Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) – for an estimated price of EUR 250 million and the Immorent/Rompetrol/Patriciu Family deal for the development of city complex Smart City (EUR 300 million).

At the beginning of this year, Markus Piuk became equity partner of Schoenherr Law Firm. Member of Bucharest, Sofia and Vienna Bars, Markus is managing the Mergers & Acquisitions Team of Schoenherr in the Central-Eastern Europe. Markus performs his activity in Bucharest, coordinating at the same time the Schoenherr offices located in Belgrade and Sofia, and the regional infrastructure projects in the energy field.

At this point, Schoenherr has 50 lawyers in Bucharest and a total of 250 lawyers. During 2007/2008 financial year, Schoenherr Office located in Bucharest reached a turnover of approximately EUR 5.5 million. The company budgeted a turnover of EUR 6.5 million for the financial year 2008/2009, ending on January 31, 2009.

BizLawyer Team