Croatia > Legal market overview
Croatia continued to face a range of difficulties in 2011. Budget deficits and high unemployment were echoed in law firms reporting massively reduced foreign direct investment mandates and resorting to a surfeit of low-grade debt recovery work. Government elections in December 2011 promised to provide political stability, but Croatia’s impending entry into the European Union in June 2013 continued to necessitate a raft of legislative changes in order to harmonise with EU regulations that have at times been unclear or difficult to interpret. The uncertain conditions of the past several years have seen a number of lawyers striking out on their own to found new firms, thus continuing the tradition of small Croatian law firms staffed by one, two or three partners with varying degrees of junior support. Among the notable new firms are Krehic Lacmanovic Law Office and the very recently founded Ostermann Law Office.
Bogdanovic, Dolicki & Partners, Divjak, Topic & Bahtijarevic, Porobija & Porobija and Zuric i Partneri remain key names in the market, despite lawyer departures from some. A number of Austrian law firms have offices staffed by a mix of Croatian and Austrian lawyers, and these include CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz Branch Office Zagreb, Schoenherr Rechtsanwälte GmbH in co-operation with Croatian Lawyers and Wolf Theiss - Zagreb branch.
Buoyant sources of work are renewable energy, given impetus by government incentives put in place to improve the country’s green profile; legislative and regulatory advice; corporate restructuring and loan refinancing; real estate developments in the tourism and retail sectors; and copious quantities of debt collection. Although foreign investment slowed dramatically, there were signs of improvement in the latter stages of 2011. Notable privatisations underway include that of Brajdica container terminal in the Port of Rijeka and also that of Zagreb Airport, which is rolled up into a PPP expansion programme.