On October 1, 2015, the new Payment Services Act came into force. This new piece of legislation introduced numerous and rather important changes to the Serbian payment operations system. These changes are also a part of Serbia’s harmonization with European Union laws and business practices, which presumes liberalization of payment services provision and widening of authorized service providers in this field, other than the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) and licensed banks, will have a significant positive impact on the market efficiency. One of the most significant changes in this sense introduced in the Payment Services Act relates to the formation of a […]
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On 4 September 2015, the Competition Commission, Serbian competition watchdog, closed an investigation against Agriser, a subsidiary of Ferrero Trading Lux S.A. and a member of Ferrero Group, owner of brands with global recognition including Nuttela, Kinder, Ferrero Rocher, etc. This case may, as well, indicate an increasing interest of the Serbian antitrust authority in tackling concentrations in the form of asset deals subject to the privatization procedures. In April this year Agriser purchased entire assets of Aleksa Šantić, a Serbian company active in the production of primary agriculture produces, within the framework of a public bid procedure governed by Privatization Agency of the […]
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On July 7, 2015, the long awaited amendments to Serbia’s 2005 Mortgage Act have been adopted. The amendments brought several important changes, primarily aimed at increasing the efficacy of the foreclosure proceedings, but also at eliminating some provisions shown to be obsolete. The following is a brief overview of the aforementioned key amendments. In terms of mortgage creation, one rather simple improvement is that the person having the direct possession of the real estate is no longer required to give its written statement agreeing with establishing the mortgage over the respective real estate. This should make the procedure of creating […]
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According to the data provided by the Serbian Privatization Agency (as of September 21, 2015), there are currently 357 companies involved in the process of privatization. On the other hand, the Privatization Act requires for the privatization process to be completed before December 31, 2015. Save for 188 companies, for which the Government already adopted an action plan for the commencement of bankruptcy proceedings (due to no productivity, no interests from potential investors and unsustainable financial performance), it remains to be seen how many companies will actually find a genuine buyer, and thus, avoid bankruptcy proceedings before the December deadline. Hence, while awaiting […]
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