New York, 14 June 2010 ... Global law firm White & Case LLP today announced a new Global Pro Bono Practice to manage and grow the Firm’s pro bono work worldwide. Leading the new practice is prominent European law litigator Ian Forrester, a Brussels-based partner in the Firm’s Global Antitrust Practice who represents multinationals, industry associations, sovereign states and other governmental authorities on antitrust and regulatory matters before European national courts, the European Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

“Establishing a Global Pro Bono Practice allows us to better manage our global pro bono activity and improve the support we give to our lawyers engaged in pro bono activity,” said White & Case Chairman Hugh Verrier. “It also builds on the Firm’s long tradition of active pro bono service.”

“Pro bono service is a core value of White & Case, a brand-defining asset,” said Ian Forrester. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to help ensure our cross-border pro bono services and on-the-ground resources make a difference in the lives of individuals and in the broader global community.”

In 2009, White & Case invested more than 80,000 hours in pro bono matters worldwide, the equivalent of US$40 million in work value. The Firm also recently announced the recipients of its 10th Annual Pro Bono Awards honoring 12 individual White & Case lawyers and 12 client teams from nine offices in seven countries. For more information about White & Case’s pro bono work and clients, please visit the Firm at http://www.whitecase.com/about/probono/.

(Bratislava), 2 June, 2010 — Global law firm White & Case LLP was named Central and Eastern Europe Law Firm of the Year 2010 at the Chambers Europe Awards for Excellence.

The awards honor outstanding law firms, reflecting both pre-eminence and notable achievements over the past 12 months, including outstanding work, impressive strategic growth and excellence in client service.

White & Case was shortlisted along with five other leading international firms.

Chambers Europe commented, “White & Case can lay claim to possibly the most consistent spread of offices and quality advice across CEE. The firm achieves Band 1 rankings across the board and is a prominent and regular presence on some of the region’s largest transactions. It serves a number of the leading international banks active in the region, including Citi, KBC, Erste Bank, CIB Bank and UniCredit.

“This award is in recognition of the high quality of legal advice we consistently provide to our clients and of the great teamwork and collaboration by all our offices across CEE and the global network,” said Jan Matejcek, regional section head for Central and Eastern Europe.

A smart way of printing

Managed Print Services (MPS) could be a priority for companies looking to uncover new ways to save money. This has been supported by a survey undertaken in the U.S. and Europe by the research and analysis company, Quocirca. The survey was given to IT directors, CIOs, IT management and decision makers in 200 organizations across the U.S., Germany, France and the U.K. 41% of them invest in printing accounts more than 10% of their IT budget; in the financial services sector this number rises to 65%.

The survey results also suggested that printing services are best provided by a trusted external partner. MPS include optimized management of organization’s printers, copiers and multi-function assets, ongoing monitoring, maintenance and management of these assets via an agreed service contract as well as the purchasing and leasing of these assets.

70% of the survey respondents are convinced that better management of their print infrastructure is essential and reached cost savings that allow further investments in other areas. Even during the economic recession, more than 90% say they will continue with plans to deploy MPS to reduce the cost of printing, sharing and updating documents. The survey also showed that 60% of current MPS users are satisfied with the cost savings, an additional 25% indicate that the cost savings exceeded their expectations.

Xerox recently became the first vendor to connect the office environment with the in-house or in-plant production print center. Xerox Enterprise Print Services extend the MPS cost-savings opportunity by making printing more efficient in the print center and in the home or virtual office. More information on this topic is available at consulting.xerox.com or svk.xgs@xerox.com.

The South beckons

In April, the first phase of a new residential development, called SUNFLOWERS (Slnečnice), part of a long expected project “South City” was finally introduced. LEXXUS became an exclusive sales agent of apartments and family houses within the project.





SUNFLOWERS project offers a possibility to choose from a wide range of apartments with architecture that reflects modern day housing requirements. Family houses are situated in separated zones with a special emphasis on privacy.

‘‘Already in the first days of the advertising campaign we have recorded an increased demand for this project. The main benefit for clients is the pleasant location with lots of greenery, but primarily its attractive prices. We expect a high demand for SUNFLOWERS, because it offers everything that has been missing on the market.” said Katarína Kupcová, LEXXUS Project Manager.





Another project in LEXXUS portfolio is JANTÁR JAROVCE.
Jantár is a new residential project located in Jarovce, 6 km south-west of Bratislava. Completion of the first phase is scheduled for Q1 2011. Jantár offers apartments and houses with modern Scandinavian architectural design with top quality standards customized to clients’ needs. The green-field development project consists of 52 residential apartments combined with 7 retail units and 49 single family plots.

The Jantár project has so far witnessed a very good pre-sale period. This clearly shows that it is a unique product situated in a good location of Jarovce, which will become a new attractive suburban location in the Bratislava region for years to come.

”Fér” play

With the introduction O2 Fér, O2 has completely changed the rules of mobile communications in Slovakia. The main principles of mobile calling have become fairness, simplicity and transparency. Fairness has resulted in the cancellation of new monthly fees paid as part of invoiced services, thanks to which the clients pay only for the services they make use of. Transparency and simplicity mean the same price day and night, work days and weekends. The same advantages apply to all users, may they be top-up or invoiced customers. O2 also became the first mobile operator in Slovakia to introduce the EDGE data package called O2 Data Neobmedzene (Unlimited).

O2 has also established the widest mobile phone offer. This has cancelled the contract-only service, since purchasing a mobile phone is not conditional to using O2 services. O2 was Slovakia’s first mobile operator to introduce the seconds charging scheme which starts after the first 30 seconds of roaming calls applied to all tariff zones. This, along with the reduced maximum price for mobile roaming calls made within the EU, means a great opportunity for money saving on the client’s side. O2 also enables its clients to make phone calls from Slovakia to the Czech Republic for the same standard rates as charged for local phone calls.

Telefónica O2 Slovakia has greatly contributed to the availability of automatic phone number portability service among the three mobile operators operating in Slovakia as well as to significant reductions in the time period required for the process. O2 also happens to be Slovakia’s only mobile operator to provide this service for free.

More shopping centres

7.4 million sq m of new floor space in shopping centres were built in Europe last year. More than one half of the new space (57%) was built in CEE countries. In Poland and Slovakia, the amount of floor space completed even exceeded the figures for 2008. The Czech Republic posted a decrease in construction, which is set to continue, says Cushman & Wakefield’s European Shopping Centres Development report.

Unlike the rest of Europe, Poland and Slovakia post continuing growth. Construction in Poland keeps growing thanks to the size of the consumer market. Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants are still of interest to both developers and retailers and are not yet fully occupied.

“Conversely, the Slovak market is relatively small and developers only “discovered” it in 2005 – 2006. After that, both domestic players and large international developers got really busy. Slovakia is now seeing the completion of projects launched back then. This is why more new floor space will be opened in Slovakia than in our country this year”, says Martin Žížala, head of Cushman & Wakefield’s retail team.

On average there is currently 225 sqm of shopping center retail space per 1,000 citizens within the European Union. All Central European countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland) are still below the average. The Czech Republic is closest with 192 sqm/1,000 citizens. Poland follows closely (173 sqm/1,000 citizens).

Construction in Europe is expected to slow down in the short-term perspective – 6.1 million sq m should be built this year and 5 million sq m next year.

Šariš continues to fuel football

Šariš Brewery has officially confirmed its cooperation with the Football Club in Veľký Šariš for the 2010/2011 season. Thus, the thirteenth year of mutual cooperation has already begun.

Šariš Brewery and football in Veľký Šariš simply belong together. Since 1998, when the cooperation first began, many challenges and triumphs of the Football Club have been witnessed in the town of Veľky Šariš. This year it won’t be different. Šariš Brewery has committed itself to continue its support of football in Veľký Šariš with a financial contribution amounting to almost 20 thousand Euros.

Róbert Oros, Mayor of Veľký Šariš, welcomes the extension of cooperation. He says: “I’m happy that the cooperation between the Football Club and Šariš brewery has such a long and stable tradition. Also thanks to this support, our football team doesn’t have to face problems, which these days, affect many other city sports clubs.”

On the occasion of the official confirmation of the support of the Football Club in Veľký Šariš, Zuzana Lošáková, the spokesperson of Pivovary Topvar a.s., said: ’’The important part of the Pivovary Topvar strategy is to support local communities. Therefore, each year we provide financial funds to support projects, which improve the life of people in the regions. The continued support of the Football Club in Veľký Šariš is only one example, very much like the grant program Občianska voľba (Citizens` choice), which is the long-standing initiative covered by our company in the Eastern Slovakia region.”

New National Partner at SSD

The global law firm Squire Sanders has named Adrián Barger a National Partner. Based in the firm’s Bratislava office since 1998, Mr. Barger is an experienced real estate lawyer whose transactional experience includes a full range of real estate projects, corporate and project finance deals as well as mergers and acquisitions. He has particular expertise in Slovak and European Union competition law issues. He has represented numerous clients in corporate matters such as mergers and acquisitions, privatizations, financings and economic regulation. Mr. Barger regularly publishes and speaks about real estate development and financing and construction law in Central and Eastern Europe.

Adrian Barger was listed as a leading individual by Chambers Global 2010 for corporate and merger and acquisition matters in the Slovak Republic, and recommended for real estate by PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook 2009. He received his economics diploma (Ing.) in 2004 from Ekonomická univerzita and his Mgr. (M.A.) in 2001 from Univerzita Komenského.