Borenius

Latvia issues Eurobonds

2012-02-22T16:21:56Z

Republic of Latvia has issued 5-year Eurobonds in the amount of 1 billion US dollars with a fixed income rate 5.25 per cent. Borenius advised managers of the issue Deutsche Bank, HSBC Bank plc and J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd.

Lauris Liepa about banking sector in Latvia

2012-02-21T12:35:25Z

Interview with office partner Lauris Liepa about banking sector in Latvia from a legal standpoint in magazine Riga NOW. Read the full article here (*pdf).

Finnish Media Group Alma Media acquires the leading Baltic internet recruitment service provider CV-Online

2012-02-17T13:33:27Z

Borenius together with its partner offices advised NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Exchange listed Alma Media Corporationin in relation to the acquisition of CV-Online, the leading internet recruitment service company in the Baltic countries.

More information: www.almamedia.fi

Intellectual property law expert Ruta Olmane has joined Attorneys at Law Borenius team

2012-02-09T09:47:52Z

We are glad to announce that since 1st February intellectual property law expert Ruta Olmane has joined Borenius team. Ruta will join intellectual property as well as dispute resolution & litigation practice groups. She specializes in litigation and enforcement of IP rights, foreign and domestic client’s customs seizures, licensing and domain names.

Ruta is a qualified Latvian Trademark Attorney since 2003 and European Trademark Attorney since 2004. She lectures at various domestic and international conferences, seminars and other high profile IP events.

Ruta is an active member in domestic and international associations. She is a Board member of AIPPI (International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, Zurich, Switzerland) Latvian National Group; a Council member of ECTA (European Community Trade Mark Association, Brussels, Belgium), Secretary of the Professional Affairs Committee of ECTA, former member of the Design Committee of ECTA (2007-2010), a Board member and secretary of the Latvian Association of Patent Attorneys; a member of the Expert group of the Intellectual Property Council of Latvia.

Ruta has been practising in IP field since 1998. Before joining Borenius Ruta worked at the largest Latvian Patent agency – TRIA ROBIT.

Ruta is confident about joining Borenius team: “Good reputation is one of the most important assets of a lawyer. I am honoured to join Borenius office that has impeccable reputation in Latvia as well as internationally and stands out with its European approach to legal services and professional ethics. We don`t have many natural resources here in Latvia, keeping that in mind, I believe that intellectual property is an asset that should be more and more important in growth process of a company. I have developed my knowledge of IP regulation in Latvia as well as internationally for more than 10 years and I believe that office clients will benefit from my experience.”

Attorneys at Law Borenius is a full service law firm established in 2003 by merging the law offices of Laine Skopina and Lauris Liepa. Today we have five partners – Lauris Liepa, Laine Skopina, Indrikis Liepa, Gatis Flinters and Ieva Azanda. Borenius is among the leading law offices in Latvia and has received high rankings from Chambers and Partners, Legal 500, IFLR100 and PLC Which Lawyer.

In 2000 Lauris Liepa law office established an association with Finnish law office Borenius. As a result of this cooperation an international network of business law firms has emerged: Borenius Group. As for today the Group is represented in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Finland. It employs over 200 lawyers providing professional legal services. Our clients can rely on tailor made, practical advice. We use our legal expertise to find pragmatic and business-effective solutions to our clients’ issues. Our approach to business law tends to find new business opportunities – in addition to solving problems.

Legal alert : Amendments to Corporate Income Tax Law

2012-02-01T13:48:00Z

On 15 December 2011 Latvian Parliament adopted amendments to the Corporate Income Tax Law, introducing several provisions that could be particularly beneficial for foreign companies having investments in Latvia. Read our material here (*pdf)

European Union co-financed BaltCap fund invests in Latvian company SIA VENDON

2012-01-13T08:08:02Z

BaltCap – the leading private equity and venture capital investor in Baltic States invests 0.5. million euro in Latvian company SIA Vendon. The respective investment is made by BaltCap Latvia Venture Capital Fund (BLVCF), established within the framework of JEREMIE Holding Fund initiative, co-financed by European Union Structural Fund and managed by the European Investment Fund.

SIA Vendon is a draugiem.lv group company, producing and supplying monitoring systems and telemetric solutions for vending machines in local, as well as international market.

Borenius assisted BaltCap in structuring the deal, conducted legal due diligence, as well as prepared and helped negotiating the transaction documents and provided legal advice with regard to other transaction related issues.

State-guaranteed Reimbursement to Clients of “Latvijas Krājbanka”

2011-12-15T09:04:33Z

Financial and Capital Market Commisson explains the state-guaranteed reimbursement to clients of “Latvijas Krājbanka” in form of questions and anwsers, read here.

Legal alert : Equal possibilities to participate within a public procurement

2011-11-24T18:21:24Z

The Constitutional Court has adopted its judgement regarding the equal possibilities to participate within a public procurement and the provable criteria for exclusion of tenderer from a public procurement procedure.

Read the material here (*pdf)

Legal alert : Limitation period for claims from commercial transactions

2011-11-17T09:01:04Z

Limitation period for claims from commercial transactions

On 1st of January 2010 a section of Commercial Law on commercial transactions entered into force. Respective regulation has been adopted in order to establish rules which would fit specific needs of companies and businessmen. Before that moment the agreements signed by individuals as well as the contracts concluded by companies have been governed by the same provisions of law which did not pay sufficient attention to the difference between business and private transactions, inter alia, to the necessity to create higher certainty in the relationships between businessmen. Due to this reason the lawmaker has considerably reduced the limitation period: from 10 years to 3 years. This new regulation applies also to the transactions which have been entered into before the section on commercial transactions entered into force. According to the transition rules claims arising from commercial transactions shall be barred either within 3 years from 1st of January 2010 or within 10 years from the day when respective claim became due depending on which of these two events enters earlier. It means that contractual claims of companies or businessmen shall be limited on 1st January 2013 the latest.

It shall be emphasised that the Commercial Law applies not only to the agreements signed between two companies, but to any contract where one of the parties is a company or a businessman provided that respective transaction is related to their business. Thus, reduced prescription period refers also to claims arising from the contracts according to which an individual renders services to a company, e.g. owner leases premises for a shop or an office. Furthermore, the Commercial Law is applicable to both parties in the agreement, i.e. to the company and an individual (non-businessman). The law provides for some exceptions from this rule, e.g. with regard to the consumers and employees whose claims shall be barred within a shorter period of time (2 years).

In order to interrupt the running of limitation period a reminder to the debtor or debt acknowledgement is sufficient. Thus, the creditor does not need to file a claim to the court in order to prevent prescription. After successful interruption the limitation period begins to run for subsequent 3 years term.

Read the material PDF

Report Doing Business 2012

2011-11-03T10:32:04Z

Doing Business 2012 is the ninth in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. The research is conducted by the World Bank Group, one of the world`s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely associated institutions: the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID); the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). These together form the World Bank. The aggregate ease of doing business rankings is based on 10 indicators and covers 183 economies.

The World Bank Group analyzes regulations that apply to an economy`s business during their life cycle, including start–up and operations, cross border trading, taxes, and insolvency.

Doing Business covers 10 areas of business regulation:

Starting a business
Dealing with construction permits
Getting electricity
Registering property
Getting credit
Protecting investors
Paying taxes
Trading across borders
Enforcing contracts
Resolving insolvency

Attorneys at Law Borenius have contributed to the research for multiple times and did so also in 2011. Below you will find a brief summary of the research that concentrates on the Baltics and Finland.

The Baltics and Finland

Finland took the highest place in the ease of doing business rankings among the Baltics and Finland. This year Finland improved its rankings by three positions. During the year Finland simplified reporting and payment for value added tax and labour tax.

Latvia positioned itself 21^st. In fact, Latvia was the biggest improver among the Baltics and Finland. During the year Latvia welcomed four reforms:

Getting electricity made faster by introducing a simplified process for approval of external connection designs.
Starting a business made easier by reducing the minimum capital requirement and introducing a common application for value added tax and company registration.
Transferring property made easier by allowing electronic access to municipal tax databases that show the tax status of property, eliminating the requirement to obtain this information in paper format.
Adopting a new insolvency law that streamlines and expedites the insolvency process and introduces a reorganization option for companies.

Estonia did not welcome any reforms and fell behind by six places in the ranking list: current position, 24. Nor was this helped by the fact that a municipal sales tax introduced in Tallinn made paying taxes costlier for firms, though a later parliamentary measure abolished local sales taxes effective January 1, 2012.

Lithuania positioned itself 27^th (previously 25^th). Two reforms were welcomed. Lithuania strengthened investor protection by introducing greater requirements for corporate disclosure to the public and in annual reports. Lithuania also amended its reorganization law to simplify and shorten reorganization proceedings, grant priority to secured creditors and introduce professional requirements for insolvency administrators. One not so popular decision concerned getting electricity. Lithuania made getting electricity more difficult by abolishing the one-stop shop for obtaining technical conditions for utility services.

Taking into account that Europe`s economy is rather shaky, we have to understand that not all decisions can be popular. Moreover, the fact that 183 countries are listed and Baltics are in the top 30 should give all of us some peace of mind.

Some interesting facts

Among the four countries, Finlandis the friendliest place to start a business, although in Estonia staring a business takes the shortest time (7 days).

Lithuania shows itself in a good light with registering property. It takes three days there. In Estonia ,Finland and Latviait takes at least two weeks.

In general, getting credit was made more difficult compared to the previous year. Latvia was the only one among Estonia, Lithuania and Finland that was ranked higher under the title of getting credit.

The lowest total tax rate (% of profit) is in Latvia (37.9) and the highest in Estonia (58.6)

Trading across the border is easiest in Estonia. The time for export and import both take 5 days, compared for example with Greece and Italy, where it takes 20 days to export.

Overall information

This year Singapore led for overall ease of doing business, followed by Hong Kong SAR, China, New Zealand, the United States, and Denmark. The Republic of Korea was a new entrant to the top 10.

The twelve economies that have most improved for ease of doing business across several areas of regulation as measured by the report are Morocco, Moldova, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, São Tome and Principe, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Burundi, the Solomon Islands, the Republic of Korea, Armenia, and Colombia. Two thirds of them are low-income or lower-middle income economies.

Altogether there were 13 % more reforms than in the previous year. Besides, over the past six years 163 economies have made their regulatory environment more business-friendly.

The most popular reform among countries was under the title of starting a business: 53 countries made this easier.

For a full overview of the 212 pages and to take a look at three case studies (Korea, FYR Macedonia, Mexico and the United Kingdom) go to doingbusiness.org.

Sources:

Doing Business 2011

Doing Business 2012

http://www.doingbusiness.org/press/press-releases/2011/press-release-global