Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii

Mihai Anghel

Mihai Anghel is a Partner with Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii’s employment practice group, advising companies from various industries, such as FMCG, pharma, transports, IT&C, real estate, financial services, telecommunications, etc. He acquired solid and extensive experience in all relevant employment and labour matters, ranging from hiring and firing, discrimination and harassment, performance appraisals, remuneration and benefits, to union issues and collective bargaining agreements, cross border transfer of undertakings, immigration matters, cross-border secondments, etc.

Gabriela Anton

Gabriela Anton is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, specialising mainly in banking and finance, and mergers and acquisitions in the financial services sector. Her other areas of practice are corporate and commercial law. Gabriela has advised credit institutions, investment funds, and other international financial institutions, as well as borrowers, on a wide range of transactions, such as project finance and corporate finance in various industries. She has also been involved in mergers and acquisitions, privatisations, restructuring projects and the transfer of banking assets, including non-performing loan portfolios. Gabriela’s expertise cover the entire transactional process, from the coordination of the due diligence work to the assistance in the structuring of the transaction, the preparation and the negotiations of the transaction documents up to the financial closing. She is also skilled in handling all legal aspects relating to the disposal of large portfolio of non-performing loans - NPLs (corporate, retail etc), having been involved in the largest deals taking place on the Romanian market in recent years. In addition, her experience includes advising on several cross-border acquisitions/disposals of NPLs in various Eastern European countries. Gabriela is fluent in English and has a good command of French language.

Dragos Apostol

Dragos Apostol is a Partner specialising in mergers and acquisitions, as well as corporate and commercial law. He has extensive experience of advising Romanian and foreign investors, as well as public authorities, on legal matters arising from a wide range of industry sectors, such as mining, real estate, financial services/private equity, automotive, agri-business, FMCG, oil and gas, and so on. His legal skills include negotiating, drafting and reviewing complex agreements in the context of joint ventures, assets and share sales and purchases, mergers, acquisitions, business transfers and reorganisations, as well as privatisation and concession projects. In particular, he has developed a considerable body of expertise advising on mergers and acquisitions taking place in the e-commerce sector. In addition, Dragos Apostol has a strong legal background in real estate, particularly in relation to real estate development, investment, sale and purchase, real estate planning, commercial leasing and property management issues, and other non-contentious aspects of real estate and construction related projects.

Catalin Baiculescu

Cătălin Băiculescu is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. He has advised on many high-profile mergers & acquisitions and Romanian privatisations, and is recognised as an expert in the due diligence process, the negotiation of assets and share-purchase agreements, as well as post-acquisition restructuring matters. Cătălin has also assisted international aircraft owners and financing banks in connection with aircraft lease agreements and mortgage agreements signed with local airlines. Furthermore, he is a skilled and resourceful lawyer in electronic communications and IT, where he has advised on licensing issues, telecom service agreements, software development agreements, data privacy and outsourcing agreements. His expertise includes the area of entertainment and media, providing legal assistance services to broadcasters and production companies on commercial contracts relating to television shows, betting and gaming, advertising agreements and regulatory issues.

Dan Borbely

As a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, Dan Borbely co-heads the firm's Real Estate and Construction practice group. He contributed to the development of a unique “one-stop shop” model facilitating access to legal and non legal services for our real estate clients in a timely and efficient manner. He has handled a wide variety of sophisticated transactions covering legal and regulatory issues in purchase and sale, property finance, leasing and concession, property insurance, public and private construction, public works, property development and investment, mortgages and other collaterals, as well as recovery and security enforcement, joint ventures and leasing of all types of properties and especially residential, office and retail projects. Dan Borbely has a broad commercial property background with particular interest in the disposal and acquisition, development agreements and property aspects of corporate related transactions.

Vlad Cercel

Vlad Cercel focuses on PPP/concession and public procurement projects, as well as electronic communications and IT. He has a wealth of practical experience in advising on the application and implementation of the various stages of procedures for awarding PPP and concession contracts, and has in-depth knowledge of the particularities of public procurement, concessions and PPP regulations in specific infrastructure sectors, such as: motorways, national roads, airports, parking facilities, social infrastructure and public utilities. He has represented leading sponsors, lenders, development banks, project originators, equipment suppliers, infrastructure funds, public sector entities, as well as public authorities in relation to public procurement, concessions and public-private partnership agreements. Further, Vlad Cercel has amassed considerable industry knowledge and expertise in advising on regulatory matters affecting the electronic communications and IT field. In his capacity as one of the main coordinators of the firm’s projects in this area, he has been involved in negotiating and drafting sector-specific contracts, including agreements on access and interconnection, facility sharing, value-added services, network building, outsourcing, equipment, service provision, retransmission agreements and so on. He has also covered authorization and licensing procedures and other specific matters in these areas, including mergers and acquisition projects in the TMT sector. Prior to entering private practice, Vlad Cercel worked with the Romanian Regulatory Authority for Communications, where he was directly involved in drafting the primary and secondary legislation applicable to the sector as part of Romania’s integration into the European Union. He also handled a broad range of legal matters in the electronic communications sector.

Sergiu Cretu

Sergiu Crețu is a Partner with Tuca Zbarcea & Asociatii. He has gained a wealth of expertise in dealing with high profile commercial transactions and mergers and acquisitions projects. As part of his corporate law expertise, Sergiu has assisted Romanian and foreign companies in implementing various complex reorganisation procedures, handling disputes between shareholders, and drafting, negotiating, and closing shareholders agreements, share purchase agreement or business transfer agreements. Sergiu is one of the key lawyers of our data privacy practice advising high-profile clients activating in telecom, banking, gambling, and health & pharma sectors. His extensive expertise covers, inter alia, implementing information governance and data management programmes, conducting data privacy impact assessments, advising on implications regarding the processing of sensitive data, advising data privacy compliance strategies and programs. Also, he heads the firm's gambling practice, having achieved significant experience in gambling projects by covering a broad range of legal services provided both to B2C and B2B gambling license holders. He is also skilled in intellectual property (advising clients on trademark registration and licensing projects, trademarks enforcement and counterfeiting claims, and software copyright), e-commerce and consumer protection (advising various local and international clients – credit institutions, product manufacturers, retail companies - in projects involving the compliance with the e-commerce, advertising and consumer protection legislation) and other regulatory areas, such cybersecurity and dual-use.

Alexandru Cristea

Alexandru Cristea is a Partner with Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii Tax SRL, an affiliate of Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii law firm. Previously working with Deloitte and PricewatehouseCoopers, Alexandru focuses primarily on indirect taxation. Alexandru has broad knowledge in tax planning and international efficiency structures, as well as in VAT and excise duty audits. He served major local and multinational clients from a wide array of industries, mainly Energy, Finance and FMCG. He acted as a local consultant in the PHARE program for the implementation of EU Harmonised Romanian VAT legislation, being involved in the drafting process of the law, as well as in organizing training sessions to professionals from the Romanian Ministry of Finance. Also, he actively managed Pre-Accession and Post-Accession projects, consisting in mappings, ERP implementations and industry-focused training sessions for top companies in Romania. Alexandru is a reputable speaker at various tax conferences and seminars and plays an ongoing role in the tax groups of AmCham/Foreign Investors Council (FIC) for the modernization of tax legislation, as well as in the discussions with the Ministry of Finance. Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii and Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii Tax are collaborating with Andersen Global in Romania.

Dan Cristea

Dan Cristea is a Partner in the litigation and arbitration practice group at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. He concentrates his practice as a pleading lawyer on commercial and contentious-administrative subjects, whilst also enjoying a wealth of experience in public procurement matters. In the commercial area, his focus includes both corporate disputes (annulment of GMS decisions, company withdrawals, shareholder litigation) as well as contractual disagreements. In administrative matters, he has been involved in a large number of trials regarding acts issued by public authorities in such areas as tax, energy, urban planning or environmental law. In public procurement, Dan Cristea has spoken in dozens of high-value trials regarding award of tender contracts exceeding hundreds of millions of Euros and has struck down provisions of the national Public Procurement law in front of the Constitutional Court. He is also passionate about his sporting law practice, which has received the Romanian Society for Legal Sciences distinction regarding remarkable contributions in Sports Law (2018). Dan Cristea is a past World Champion in debating (ESL, Dublin, 2009) and a Forbes Romania '30 under 30'.

Stefan Damian

Stefan Damian is Deputy Managing Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. He specialises in mergers and acquisitions, banking and finance and capital markets. Stefan has built up a considerable body of practice and experience on the merger and acquisitions/privatisation, post-merger and acquisitions/privatisation issues affecting private and State-owned enterprises, and on the reorganisation of corporate and commercial relationships. His capital markets experience includes assistance in the first listing of an international company in Romania, while also working very closely with the main regulatory authorities – the Bucharest Stock Exchange, as well as investment banks, investment and private equity funds, buyout funds, venture capital firms, real estate funds and other alternative investment vehicles, public portfolio companies in many types of investment transactions, including buyouts and recapitalisations, fund formation and management, acquiring participations and exiting procedures, and joint ventures.

Ciprian Dragomir

In his capacity as Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, Ciprian Dragomir has represented multi-national companies from a variety of industries such as automotive, steel, oil and gas, maritime in connection with their investments in Romania. A further focus of his practice concerns legal advice on a broad range of environmental law issues, including brownfield development and contaminated land liability, waste management, licensing and permitting, environmental impact assessment, greenfield development. Ciprian Dragomir is also a certified intellectual property counselor for trademarks, coordinating the firm's intellectual property practice group and advising clients on all aspects related to the registration, protection, licensing and transfer of patents, trademarks, copyrights, designs and software, AI and cybersecurity law, as well as data privacy issues.

Oana Gavril

Oana Gavril is a Partner in the litigation and arbitration practice group at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. She has an extensive experience in complex litigation in legal areas such as administrative and fiscal law, labour and civil law, including matters of real estate and matters of corporate law. Oana has conducted numerous disputes concerning the annulment of tax decisions, disputes on determining and sanctioning the irregularities in accessing and using of European funds and/or of national public funds afferent thereof, as well as litigation cases on challenging the building permits/ Zonal Urban Plans and the challenging of various dismissal decisions, and cases regarding enforcement procedures and contractual or tort liability. In addition, Oana was involved in complex international arbitral proceedings.

Razvan Gheorghiu-Testa

Razvan Gheorghiu-Testa is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, having built up a strong legal career in real estate, corporate/M&A, as well as taxation. Further to his expertise in real estate matters, he combines tax and corporate law skills offering multidisciplinary strategies and solution in relation to a broad spectrum of property matters. He has been directly involved in many of the most important projects taking place in Romania, including acquisitions and disposal of real estate, investment and development real estate projects, and real estate finance. Razvan Gheorghiu-Testa regularly offers planning advice on investments to major institutional investors, as well as international companies from a variety of industries, such as retail, consumer goods, steel, energy, telecommunications, oil and gas, pharma. In addition to his role as one of the coordinators of the firm’s real estate practice group, he co-heads the firm’s specialised tax division, Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii Tax SRL. Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii and Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii Tax are collaborating with Andersen Global in Romania.

Manuela Gornoviceanu

Manuela Gornoviceanu is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii and heads the firm's criminal law department. With more than 25 years’ experience in litigation, mediation and arbitration, she an all-around professional and ensures high-quality defence services with a multidisciplinary approach in all stages of a criminal trial and at all levels of the national judiciary system, including the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the Romanian Constitutional Court. Particularly, her background covers a wide range of cases involving corporate crime, corruption, occupational crime and money laundering, intellectual property crime, tax evasion and accounting law, crimes involving EU funds, public procurement and capital markets. In addition, her expertise extends to fields such as European Union Law, human rights, tax law or public procurement in contentious and administrative disputes where she has defended her clients with petitions and written conclusions before international courts such as European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. Manuela Gornoviceanu is a regular speaker at various national conferences and author of numerous articles on litigation, criminal law and European law matters. She has also prepared and held interactive training sessions regarding the interpretation and application of anti-money laundering legislation, and provided her clients with in-depth procedures and policies in this regard.

Silvana Ivan

Silvana Ivan is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii and works as part of the firm’s capital markets and securities, as well as corporate and commercial practice groups. She has a strong background in mergers and acquisitions and privatisation/post-privatisation issues. She regularly assists some of the firm's most important clients in relation to a wide range of capital market/financial instruments transactions, as well as with respect to various regulatory and compliance requirements applicable to the regulated entities in the field. She attended intensive workshops with the Vienna Stock Exchange and Prague Stock Exchange and also with their related clearing and settlement service providers and has further acquired a significant expertise in the drafting and implementing of new capital market regulations and procedures in view of optimising the local legal framework and harmonising it with the relevant international standards and practices. Furthermore, Silvana Ivan took part in high-profile investment projects, acting for renowned multi-national companies active in various industries (e.g. financial services, pharma and healthcare, FMCG etc.), in relation to their operations and investment plans in Romania, including mergers and acquisitions, privatisation/post-privatisation issues, activities’ and business model restructuring, corporate and commercial issues. Silvana also specialises in the applicable regulations affecting the Healthcare sector, covering regulatory compliance matters (for the service providers, staff, special equipment etc), contractual framework with the Health Insurance Houses, legal matters pertaining to service provider-patient relationship, as well as to the relationship between the medical staff and the clinic/hospital, anti-corruption and deontological matters, special insurance requirements, advertising and promotion rules, etc. Silvana is a certified Mediator in Business Disputes and a faculty member of The Board Leadership Program designed in partnership with the Independent Directors Association / Asociatia Administratorilor Independenti - AAI and the Bucharest Business School where she delivers the Corporate Governance module.

Cătălina Mihăilescu

Cătălina Mihăilescu is a Partner specialised in insolvency and liquidation, civil and commercial litigation, acting as a pleading lawyer before Romanian courts of all levels of jurisdiction. Cătălina is highly skilled in providing legal assistance and representation concerning complex corporate restructuring and reorganisation of companies through court procedures or out of court negotiations, including complex debt restructuring/debt recovery projects. Cătălina’s broad expertise includes civil and commercial disputes and enforcement proceedings, having represented foreign and local clients throughout all stages of pre insolvency and insolvency procedures. She is a co-author of the book Bankruptcy and Liquidation (Universul Juridic, 2015).

Andreea Oprișan

Andreea Oprișan is a Partner with Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii’s competition group. She combines legal and economic competition law tools in view of supporting clients’ projects and handling the full-range of competition law issues from antitrust and compliance matters to merger control and state aid. Other areas in which Andreea advises clients on a day-to-day basis include consumer protection, advertising, unfair competition practices, commercial/contract law. Andreea’s expertise covers a wide area of economic sectors including FMCG, agriculture, automotive, insurance, banking, energy, oil & gas, services, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, healthcare, distribution and logistics, retail, IT&C, media and advertising, etc.

Alexandra Pereș

Alexandra Pereș specialises in the areas of real estate, mergers and acquisitions, corporate and commercial, banking and finance. She is a highly skilled real estate lawyer, with a particular focus on construction and urbanism, retail, office, energy sector. As part of her experience she has been involved in major projects on the Romanian market, coordinating mergers and acquisition projects, restructuring of debts and receivables and negotiation of afferent guarantees and advising on matters related to construction and urbanism, implementation of various real estate projects, structuring of real estate transactions and the associated financing process, commercial leasing and property management, as well as on various non-contentious aspects of real estate and construction related projects.

Ana Popa

Ana Popa is a Partner in the Litigation and Arbitration practice at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, recognised for her extensive experience in complex, high-value public procurement and construction disputes. A Certified Public Procurement Expert, Ana advises leading international contractors and investors on strategically significant infrastructure projects, providing end-to-end legal support across all phases of procurement and execution. She is frequently entrusted with the coordination of large, multidisciplinary legal teams in disputes involving major national and cross-border infrastructure developments. Ana has played a central role in some of the most prominent public procurement litigations in Romania, acting for top-tier European construction and transportation groups in disputes relating to highway, express road, railway, and large public works projects, with an aggregate value reaching billions of euros. Her practice is distinguished by a sophisticated understanding of regulatory frameworks, construction contracts (including Government Decision No. 1/2018 and FIDIC), and administrative litigation, combined with a pragmatic, outcome-oriented approach..

Cornel Popa

Cornel Popa is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. Cornel combines top technical skills with commercial acumen to deal with complex and diverse matters. His multi-disciplinary approach covers large domestic and international joint-ventures, mergers, acquisitions and privatization projects, as well as dispute resolution. Cornel Popa has represented buyers and sellers from a broad range of industries and various Romanian governmental authorities in relation to multi-faceted, sophisticated matters. He is acknowledged as one of the most experienced dispute resolution lawyers in Romania, having dealt with civil litigation, mediation, domestic and international arbitration and participated in many hearings before ICSID, ICC and the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. He also acts for clients active in the oil and gas industry, covering upstream and downstream matters (i.e. exploration, infrastructure and pipeline development and services contracts, related M&A issues etc).

Anca Puscasu

Anca Pușcașu, a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, specialises in international arbitration, corporate and commercial, as well as mergers and acquisitions. Anca represents clients in arbitrations before important arbitral forums including ICSID, ICC, SAC, GAFTA and VIAC. She has experience managing claims arising out of privatisations, sale and purchase agreements, natural resource concessions, contracts with State and State-entities. Anca has significant knowledge in international public arbitration, being part of the team representing either the Romanian Government or the investor in four international arbitration cases brought by foreign investors against Romania to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes - ICSID. Anca's second specialisation is anti-money laundering and compliance, Anca advising clients on the implementation of AML policies, dealing with investigations by the Romanian AML Office, international sanctions, etc. Furthermore, Anca's experience encompasses working with clients in a wide range of industries including mining, oil & gas, electric power, railroads, banking, financial services, retail, real estate and manufacturing. Her practice covers advising clients on corporate and commercial law, as well as legal assistance and representation in disputes regarding corporate and various intellectual property matters.

Serban Pâslaru

Serban Paslaru is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, specialising mainly in PPP and concessions, as well as labour/employment law where he co-heads the firm's practice group. In the course of his legal career, he has achieved a considerable body of expertise in dealing with the various stages of the procedures for awarding public procurement and concession agreements, as well as in the management of the legal risks deriving from the applicable legal framework. In this area he has been involved in major projects, especially in infrastructure and public utilities sectors, acting both on the public and the private side. He also has an impressive experience in the employment area of practice where he has coordinated or been involved in a wide variety of projects including personnel restructuring, transfers of undertaking, negotiation of collective bargaining agreements etc.

Robert Rosu

As a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, Robert Rosu co-heads the firm`s litigation and domestic arbitration practice group, the largest department within the firm. He is also responsible for the implementation of a business-oriented approach aimed at assessing the best course of action to be taken in dealing with litigation matters to the advantage of our clients. His practice covers a broad range of litigation matters in the following areas: commercial litigation, usually involving company law and shareholder disputes, administrative, competition, employment, intellectual property, taxation as well as enforcement procedures and criminal litigation. In addition, he is a resourceful litigator who has briefed and argued a number of complex and high-profile cases at the International Court of Arbitration, having acted on behalf of the Romanian government and various foreign investors. Further to his practice in litigation and arbitration, he has been involved in several important state-owned enterprise privatizations as well as acquisition transactions in the private and public sectors.

Ionut Serban

Ionut Serban is a Partner in the litigation and arbitration practice group at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. As a pleading lawyer, he has appeared before Romanian courts at all levels, domestic and international courts of arbitration in complex civil law, corporate and commercial, contentious-administrative, labour and fiscal disputes, complex bankruptcy and reorganization proceedings, forced execution and debt recovery measures, as well criminal law cases and various arbitral proceedings. Ionut Serban has a strong track record in representing local and multinational companies, credit institutions, non-banking financial institutions, governmental institutions and bodies of the local and central public administration system, as well as renowned public figures.

Ciprian Timofte

Ciprian Timofte is a Partner in the firm's Corporate and Mergers & Acquisitions practice groups. He has built up extensive expertise in conducting cross-border and domestic mergers and other corporate reorganisations, as well as in structuring and negotiating complex acquisition deals. Ciprian Timofte heads our firm's AI and Data Protection practice group, being recognised as an outstanding and reputable lawyer in this niche area. In the past years, Ciprian Timofte focused on coordinating complex data privacy projects in all relevant industries and impressed our clients with his solid legal background and practical approach. Ciprian Timofte has been actively involved in various regulatory initiatives concerning data protection, by providing valuable input with regard to data privacy projects laws or regulatory guides. He is a regular speaker and writer on topics related to data privacy and other legal matters.

Florentin Tuca

Dr Florentin Tuca is Managing Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. He has gained a wide reputation in handling complex domestic and international arbitration, particularly in relation to privatisation and cross-border disputes, having been involved in four international arbitration files brought against Romania to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes – ICSID. In addition, he has a wealth of experience in corporate law, banking law, as well as project finance, concessions and other forms of PPP projects, notably in the fields of infrastructure and energy. He has conducted, as co-ordinator, numerous privatisations, joint-ventures, mergers and acquisitions in various industries. He is also highly skilled in drafting laws and regulations, being involved in the development and implementation of the legal framework relating to privatization, concessions, banking and other areas. Florentin Tuca is a regular speaker and writer on topics related to corporate law, PPPs, concession and other legal matters. He is also a founding member and General Secretary of the French-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and holds a PhD degree in PPPs and Concessions. In 2012, he was named European Managing Partner of the Year by The Lawyer magazine.

Alina Ungureanu

Alina Ungureanu, Partner, has a PhD in civil procedure law and a broad practice in commercial litigation, domestic and international arbitration. She has an extensive experience in judicial proceedings related to the enforcement phase, including the recognition and enforcement in Romania of court decisions or arbitration awards issued by international courts. Furthermore, she has been involved in insolvency, reorganisation, and bankruptcy proceedings as a Member of the National Union of Insolvency Practitioners in Romania since 2008. Alina has also conducted complex dispute resolution cases in a variety of fields, from real estate and construction rights to insurance law litigation, representing some of the leading insurers on the market or in the field of railway infrastructure. She has experience in legislative proposals (mainly as regards civil procedure) and is the author of several legal works, published in domestic and international publications, as well as of the book – “The challenge to the enforcement proceedings” (Universul Juridic, 2012-2013).

Raluca Vasilache

Raluca Vasilache is a competition Partner with Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii and head of the firm`s practice in this area. She covers a wide array of legal issues primarily in the field of competition law (notably, in all areas of practice antitrust, mergers and state aid). Raluca was involved as coordinator in almost all high-profile antitrust investigations of the Romanian Competition Council. Raluca is also proving day-to-day advice in competition law compliance, contract and policies structuring, organised numerous client trainings and successfully assisted clients during dawn raid procedures. She has also undertaken numerous procedures of reviewing mergers and acquisitions either with national impact or cross-border projects. Raluca was involved in important local or cross-border projects from antitrust and merger control to a state aid and advised clients before the European Commission, the Romanian Competition Council or other local bodies, as applicable. Jointly with the litigation team of the firm, Raluca is advising clients before national courts or the Court of Justice of the European Union in litigious cases involving competition law. Raluca Vasilache's expertise also includes consumer protection, anti-counterfeiting norms, unfair competition, commercial contracts. .

Christina Vladescu

Christina Vladescu is a Partner in the litigation and arbitration practice group at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. As a former judge, she has built up a recognized business litigation practice by effectively combining a thorough understanding of the local judicial system with impressive advocacy skills gained as a trusted legal adviser and pleading lawyer. Such an in-depth knowledge has been pivotal in her achieving favourable results for the firm’s clients before Romanian courts at all levels, including the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the Constitutional Court of Romania. Christina Vladescu has argued and briefed numerous complex civil and commercial cases, especially in matters concerning ownership and other real rights (restitution claims for nationalized properties and expropriation, disputes on real estate transactions), civil and commercial agreements, enforcement, various contractual and tort liability cases, corporate law litigation (shareholder disputes, withdrawals and buy-outs from the company, annulment of GMS resolutions) as well as unfair competition and insolvency matters. Christina Vladescu also has a strong track record of success in handling disputes from a mixture of legal areas such as administrative-contentious (fiscal and customs matters, disputes involving public procurement and concessions), family and labour law. In addition, she has an important practice in managing arbitration cases.

Sorin Vladescu

Sorin Vladescu is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii, specialising in energy law, especially electricity. Sorin covers regulatory components of M&A and other transactional work arising from the energy sector, including restructuring/de-regulation arising out of the wholesale and retail electricity/power market, as well as development of energy projects (such as electric, oil and gas fired plants, nuclear and hydro-electric plants, etc). He is one of only a handful of lawyers specialising in renewable projects (i.e, financing, development and regulatory issues surrounding wind generation, solar, biomass energy generation). In addition, he has been involved in several major privatisation deals in Romania in the electricity and gas distribution sectors and contributed to the amendment of the regulatory framework relating to the support scheme for the generation of power from renewable energy sources.

Gabriel Zbarcea

Gabriel Zbârcea is Managing Partner at Tuca Zbarcea & Asociatii. Together with Florentin Tuca, he oversees the management of the firm while also being actively involved in aspects of client relationship and client development. Gabriel has extensive expertise in mergers and acquisitions, energy and natural gas law, military procurement programs, and energy security projects in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. He has acted as a trusted advisor to leading Romanian and multinational companies, with significant experience advising clients based in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Gabriel has successfully assisted with international joint ventures and corporate restructuring, as well as the development of large-scale investments such as major greenfield projects in the renewables, oil, gas, mining and steel sectors. He has played a pivotal role in privatisation processes of State-owned enterprises, including the first privatisation deals taking place in Romania in the area of electricity, oil and gas. In addition to his legal background, Gabriel honed his skills and talents in the public sector in his capacity as State Counsellor to Romania's Prime Minister and President of the Romanian Privatization Agency (the Authority for State Assets Recovery - AVAS). He also acted as President of the Privatisation Commission of Banca Comerciala Româna (BCR) and Chairman of the Interministerial Committee on EU Accession Commitments - Chapter 6 "Competition" - Government of Romania. He is a regular speaker on topics related to investment legal framework and has authored numerous articles on real estate, mergers and acquisitions, banking, oil and gas. Gabriel actively participates in academic and advisory roles, serving on the Advisory Board and Board of Trustees of the American International School of Bucharest (AISB). A former President of the Students' League of the University of Bucharest and a Secretary General of the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) Romania and a former Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political and Administrative Sciences (University of Bucharest), Gabriel is very much committed to mentoring programs aimed at empowering the next generations of legal practitioners. Gabriel is a licensed FIFA Football Agent. He is fluent in English.

Levana Zigmund

Levana Zigmund is a Partner at Tuca Zbârcea & Asociatii. She practices in the areas of public international arbitration/dispute resolution, corporate law, as well as mergers, acquisitions and privatisations. She is one of only a handful public international arbitration lawyers in Romania, having been involved in four major international arbitration cases brought against Romania to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes – ICSID. Her expertise also encompasses arbitration under the leading institution rules, including under the UNCITRAL Rules or the International Chamber of Commerce. She has acted in complex commercial, real estate, fiscal and administrative disputes. Levana Zigmund has represented public and private companies in joint-ventures, corporate governance matters, corporate and commercial transactions, business transfer projects, cross-border investments as well as shipping and transport projects.