Commercial, IT and IP

Commercial advice in every sense of the word.

When it comes to commercial advice and a pragmatic approach, look no further than Stankovic & Partners (NSTLAW) – your all-round commercial advisors in Serbia and Montenegro. Commercial work forms a core practice for our talented team of lawyers, and we have considerable experience of every aspect of the field, from negotiating and documenting region-wide supply and distribution agreements, to large-scale corporate joint ventures, project documentation, IT licensing and business process outsourcing agreements, insurance contracts, and other commercial contracts, including registration of corporate changes with the Serbian Business Registers Agency.

This is no idle boast: we really are leaders in this field. For example, over half of the distribution agreements for beer and soft drinks, as well as over half of the distribution agreements for milk and dairy products in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, are based on agreements we have drafted for our clients.

We enjoy a particularly fast-growing reputation in the intellectual property arena, where our sizeable dedicated IP and data protection team supports domestic and international clients on everything from intensive portfolio management and IP prosecution and protection strategies, to advice on exploiting image rights and IP due diligence in the context of some of the region’s largest M&A transactions and financings. The group is also widely admired for our expertise in data protection and privacy matters, where we assist a number of well-known international clients with data projects and cross-border data transfer, and on advertising and marketing, having, for example, prepared the sponsorship agreements relating to the two biggest music festivals in Serbia as well as the Serbian Premier League and the national football team.

Most importantly, though, we pride ourselves on taking the time to learn about our clients’ aims, constraints and drivers, and to tailor our advice carefully to their circumstances. That means our guidance is commercial in every sense of the word.

Our client list includes numerous nationally and internationally significant businesses such AD Imlek, CCBill SRB doo Novi Sad (part of CCBill Group USA – a leading payments company), UCTAM (part of the Unicredit Group), Apatinska pivara (part of Molson Coors Group), Sport Vision (the general distributor of Nike for Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina), Novartis, Takeda, Berlin Chemie AG, Uniqa Insurance, Monster Energy, Rand Investment Canada, Dominion Voting Canada, CB&I USA, GOPA Germany, the Innovation Fund of the Republic of Serbia, Apex Solution Technology, the Secretariat for Transport for the City of Belgrade, Sberbank, Technomer doo Beograd, Japanese Business Alliance in Serbia, and a host of other major names.

Recent highlights:

  • advising the German arm of an international pharmaceutical group on an important commercial project involving the collection and processing of personal data for employees, as well as doctors and healthcare workers, in a centralised database, including assisting with international data transfer issues;
  • advising a Serbian brewery on a licensing agreement for the brewing and distribution of a global beer brand and on proceedings before the regulatory bodies to obtain approvals for an exemption from the forbidden agreement regulations;
  • advising a leading electronics company based in the US and Europe on commercial issues, including how to transfer personal data (fingerprints) for research purposes and other data compliance issues, including data collection and international data transfer;
  • undertaking a risk analysis for a Canadian technology company in connection with the use of open source software, including a review of licenses and terms of use and potential proceedings for compensation for damages across the USA, Canada and Serbia, and server locations globally;
  • acting for the Serbian subsidiary of a well-known international pharmaceutical company in the process of establishing operations in Serbia, including advising on commercial compliance issues relating to the sale of pharmaceutical products, and a distribution framework agreement with its parent company;
  • advising a leading medical devices manufacturer based in Scandinavia on the terms for its participation in a public tender for the supply of medical devices to public hospitals in Bosnia, including in relation to public procurement issues and risk management;
  • acting for a global automated service provider in relation to IP rights and data protection relating to public transport fare collection, as well as on the development of a loyalty program involving the City of Belgrade and leading banks, supermarket chains and insurance companies;
  • managing a large IP portfolio for the Serbian arm of a global brewing company , including the protection of trade marks and logos used for marketing, as well as data protection issues across the region;
  • advising on data protection compliance and risk issues in connection with the acquisition by a large financial services firm of a bank specialising in mobile banking from a major international telecoms company;
  • advising Takeda Pharmaceuticals on compliance issues, including assisting with procedures for the collection and processing of employee data across the region, and for registering its databases;
  • advising one of the largest global third-party payment processors, CCBill, on various commercial aspects of its Serbian and international operations, including personal data protection.