The Legal 500

Turcan Cazac is ‘a pleasure to work with, helpful and responsive, providing professional and very efficient services’. Alexander Turcan and ‘astute legal beagle’ Octavian Cazac are praised for their ‘personal attention to clients, dedication, hard and creative work’, as well as their ‘reliable, smooth, trustful and prompt’ service. Notable deals included acting for IFC and Germany’s DEG on their financing of Trans-Oil Group of Companies – one of Moldova’s largest private sector financings – and advising Crédit Suisse International on restructuring a secured loan to oil port operator Bemol.

At ACI Partners Law Office, ‘all services are provided on time and correctly by a professional law firm well above many others’. Managing partner Igor Odobescu is ‘a good manager, always polite and punctual’. He and Carolina Parcalab, Serghei Filatov, Daniela Sipitca, and Veronica Bradautanu are ‘very pleasant and professional’. Litigation specialist Marina Zanoga joined from Turcan Cazac, continuing the firm’s steady growth trend. The team has been advising Frontera Resources on oil and gas projects and representing The Republic of Moldova in a €50m ICSID arbitration.


‘Excellent lawyer’ Roger Gladei of Gladei & Partners is ‘more authoritative in banking than anyone in the market’. Gladei and Vitalie Ciofu have extensive in-house experience at banks, and the firm acts for international financial institutions, including EBRD and IFC, and various banks’ Moldovan subsidiaries. Financing, regulatory advisory work and litigation are key strengths of the practice, which often works with international law firms such as Allen & Overy LLP on cross-border matters.

Full-service firm PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal provides ‘very good service from professional and responsive lawyers’. It has been advising Société Générale on a $15m loan refinancing, and compiling a legal feasibility study regarding a public-private partnership for a state-owned enterprise. The ‘highly intelligent, extremely knowledgeable’ and ‘very proactive’ Alexandru Munteanu has ‘superb knowledge and analytical skills, rapid 24/7 reaction time and provides complete solutions’. Ilona Panurco has ‘great interpersonal skills’.

Schoenherr Chisinau, formerly known as Vladimir Iurkovski BIA in cooperation with Schoenherr, is now part of the Austrian firm which has a strong platform across central Europe. It provides ‘very quick response times’ and the ‘nice, reasonable’ Vladimir Iurkovski, as well as associates Anna Cusnir and Andrian Guzun, have a busy practice handling corporate and real estate work for clients in the petroleum, insurance, pharmaceuticals and IT sectors. Key clients include the Ministry of the Economy and OMV.

Romanian law firm Vernon | David’s team in Chisinau has ‘great legal experience’. Litigation and business law specialist George Teodorescu 
and highly regarded finance and M&A partner Diana Neagu jointly head the team, which recruited experienced litigator Ion Capatana, who previously ran his own arbitration practice. Teodorescu and the ‘charismatic’ Charles Vernon represented Sun Communications in a $4m dispute with the Moldovan government. Key clients include British American Tobacco and Air Moldova.

Mihail Buruiana of Buruiana & Partners has built a reputation for reliability over many years and the firm is best known for arbitration and finance transactions, advising clients such as EBRD.

Banking and M&A specialist Victor Levintsa of Levintsa & Associates has a longstanding reputation for giving high-quality advice to foreign and domestic clients.

Popa & Associates’ Igor Popa is known as an effective team manager on large projects, and the firm is seen as good value for money by international and domestic clients.