Recently viewed firm rankings
Recently viewed firm profiles
Recently viewed lawyer profiles
Overview
Legislative developments have come thick and fast over recent years in Croatia. Everyone’s eyes are set on the target of EU accession, which could be a reality as early as 2011 provided Slovenia drop their formal objections. Consequently, the legislative emphasis is on EU harmonisation. The 2007 securitisation act set the tone for changes to come. By incorporating the Basel Accords, the act was merely introducing well-accepted European standards and processes into Croatian law but the fallout has been considerable; brokers, financial services organisations, legislators, the judiciary and law firms found themselves struggling to come to terms with the new legal landscape and its full implications.
2008 saw the introduction of laws on public procurement and the regulation of public-private partnerships (PPP). Both are attempts to bring Croatia up to speed with the EU benchmark. Croatian lawyers are now able to form limited liability partnerships, a further nod to the EU-isation of Croatia. However, firms are more excited at the prospect of finally having the restrictions on publicity and advertising loosened and, in particular, being allowed to have websites.
All is not progress, though. Threatened for 2009 are a law on agricultural land and another on foreigners. The former ups the current 5% fee on converting land from agricultural to building land to a blistering 100%; to most this seems like nothing other than an ill-timed disincentive to direct foreign investment, as Croatia’s real estate market already feels the pain from the international credit crisis. The proposed law on foreigners imposes draconian restrictions on foreigners working in Croatia, specifically requiring them to have been resident for a full two years before they are able to bring across their family.
Economically, the international collapse in money markets finally struck Croatia in the last months of 2008. The burgeoning capital markets sector froze suddenly, real estate cooled drastically and corporate activity shifted decisively from mergers and acquisitions to restructuring and disposals. The Croatian legal market is far from mature and specialisms are still underdeveloped, meaning that no domestic firms will find it too difficult to recalibrate to an atmosphere of unsophisticated corporate and commercial work for the immediate term.
The old guard of Croatian law firms has finally been broken up. Although Bogdanovic, Dolicki & Partners, Porobija & Porobija and Zuric i Partneri remain dominant across all practice areas, their work is matched in both quality and quantity by Divjak, Topic & Bahtijarevic and Savoric & Partners. The latter firm has driven its way into the top tiers of the market through the sheer effort, skill and intense hard work of its managing partner Boris Savoric.
Importantly, the question of international - and particularly Austrian - firms refuses to go away. Despite various moves towards liberalisation of the legal market in anticipation of eventual EU accession, the CBA remain determined to root out foreign presences that they deem ‘illegitimate’. Many domestic firms are unhappy with non-Croatian firms opening branch offices in cooperation with local lawyers. They argue that these operations merely trade on the established brand but are staffed by low-profile Croatian attorneys under the vague auspices of partners tucked away in offices in Vienna. The international firms themselves argue that these are strong practices in their own right, offering a much-needed blend of domestic knowledge with international standards and cohesive European networks. DLA Piper Weiss-Tessbach; Branch for International Legal Consulting/in Cooperation with Local Attorneys, CMS Zagreb (Crnalic in alliance with CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz), Nikolina Golubic in co-operation with Schönherr Rechtsanwälte GmbH and Wolf Theiss Vienna in co-operation with Croatian lawyers have dug themselves in and seem intent on riding the storm until EU accession brings them legitimacy.