Velchev & Co. Law Office

The firm: Velchev & Co Law Office team provides its 20 years of professional expertise and business know-how in service of many domestic and multinational clients working in areas as diverse as banking, telecommunications and IT, manufacturing, marine transport or gaming. The managing partner Pavel Velchev has often been top-ranked by international legal directories and has a proven track record of successfully supporting clients in achieving their business strategies.

By integrating international standards with local experience and knowledge, they focus on providing their clients with projects and transactional legal advice, regulatory counselling and dispute resolution. The lawyers in the firm are talented, motivated individuals who love their work and are committed to clients’ success.

Areas of practice: TMT – Velchev & Co provides high-profile telecommunications and regulatory legal advice to major domestic and foreign clients. The TMT team consists of experts with outstanding competition and sector-specific regulatory expertise, gained at high-ranked governmental position and within public and private sector organizations. They have been advising on all key regulatory policy changes, compliance issues, as well as on all major legislative amendments in the recent years. Velchev & Co assisted for the third-round analyses deregulation by the NRA of the non-EU traffic termination as well as the smooth contractual implementation thereafter. Velchev & Co counsels the main Bulgarian telecom company Mobiltel and its parent company Telecom Austria and has took material part in the process of structuring, drafting and compliance assessment and implementation of the first mobile national roaming access agreement in Bulgaria (National Roaming Agreement).

Corporate and commercial/ M&A – Velchev & Co provides clients with market-leading legal advice on their day-to-day business and on their most significant commercial transactions, including important mergers and acquisitions and ground-breaking projects.

During last year the team has dedicated a lot of efforts to the ongoing negotiations of Victoria Bank acquisition by our client Bulgarian American Credit Bank. The possible acquisition includes detailed and systematic legal due-diligence of the assets of Banka Victoria, direct negotiations with the Seller CTBank (in insolvency), acquiring of administrative approval from the governing bodies – Bulgarian National Bank and Commission of protection of the Competition.

Velchev & Co has contributed for the acquisition and merger of Mobiltel with the biggest cable and internet access provider Blizoo and the multi-million claw back reconciliations thereafter. Velchev&Co fully participated in the acquisition from the Bulgarian investment fund SCIF of one of the biggest ports in Bulgaria on the seaside – Port Bulgaria West AD. The transaction included full legal due-diligence, drafting the relevant documents and negotiating the transaction, filing and obtaining the regulatory approval from Commission of protection of the Competition.

Gaming – Velchev & Co is one of the very few law offices in Bulgaria offering specialized legal assistance in the gambling industry. We provide not only legal representation, but also full business networking support in establishing a stable market position and implementing the most effective business strategies. Velchev & Co has been successfully advising the biggest Bulgarian operators of lottery games National Lottery & New Games for a number of years now.

Intellectual property – Velchev & Co deals with a variety of copyright and design disputes and transactions. We also frequently advise on the acquisition and the exploitation of creative works, designs, computer software, media rights and other publishing rights. Recent activities include border protection measures concerning several famous trademarks incl. GUCCI, Philipp Plein, Moncler, Gant. The total amounts of goods sized exceeds 20 000 pcs. only for 2017.

The trademark protection includes starting of opposition proceeding before the Patent Office of Bulgaria on behalf of Novartis AG, Furla S.p.A., Philipp Morris Brands Sarl. and many others.

Litigation – The litigation team includes lawyers with broad experience in complex corporate litigation, acquired across all industries. The firm has extensive experience in such diverse areas of the law as competition, bankruptcy, general commercial disputes, IP, M&A, tax, administrative and employments. With respect to IP, the firm handles important litigation involving patents, copyright and trademarks in industries pharmaceuticals, high-end fashion and consumer products.

In 2017 major efforts was invested on the representation of the biggest telecom operator Mobiltel and its parent company Telekom Austria in a series of high-profile tax cases.

Velchev&Co finalized a prolonged case against the Customs Authorities on behalf of one of the major logistic companies in Bulgaria, successfully revoke an administrative penalty in an amount of more than Euro 2 m.

After prolonged proceedings Velchev&Co successfully defended Bulgarian-American Credit Bank against the unfounded claims from a company seeking to annual credit contracts in more than Euro 3m.

The Trademark department of Velchev&Co successfully delivered a positive decision on behalf of Bridgestone Corporation (JAPAN) related to the trademark opposition against a sign similar to the Bridgestone trademark.

On behalf of Mr. Philipp Plein the team started court proceeding against one of the infamous local online retailers – a central hub for selling of fake goods. The case is the first one in this legal area in Bulgaria and can saw as a test case for the retail sector.