The health of the banking sector in Serbia European banks are still coping with the challenging environment defined by, among other issues, the high level of impaired assets and mounting regulatory pressure to remove these from the banks’ balance sheets. Although, on average, the NPL ratios and provisioning are improving, there are still a significant […]
On 6 July 2016, the Serbian telecommunications regulator, the Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services (“RATEL“), announced that a new virtual mobile network operator (“MVNO“), Globaltel, had been registered in the register of operators. According to the press release, Globaltel will commence to provide its services in September 2016. Globaltel is the second […]
The new Serbian Enforcement and Security Act becomes applicable on 1 July 2016. The changes are numerous. This is the first in a series of our Newsletters in which we will address the novelties introduced by the new legislation. The new types of provisional measures The existing legislation does not contain an exhaustive list of […]
New withholding tax As of 1 March 2016, payments to non-resident legal entities for services provided or used in Serbia will be exposed to a new withholding tax, at the rate of 20%. This new tax applies unless the DTT between Serbia and the country of the service provider says otherwise. Non-resident companies having intra-group […]
New Labour Act of Republika Srpska (“Labour Act“) came into force on 20 January 2016. Fixed-term employment Fixed-term employment regime is liberalised to an extent. So far, fixed-term employment period could not exceed 24 months. With the new legislation, a person hired to replace a temporarily absent employee can have a fixed-term employment for as […]
In November 2015, the Serbian Parliament passed a new legislation regulating secondment of employees abroad (Act on Conditions for Secondment of Employees to Temporary Work Abroad and their Protection, “Official Gazette of RS” no. 91/2015) (“Secondment Act“). The new legislation will be applicable from 13 January 2016. The Secondment Act does not bring drastic changes […]
On 23 October 2015, the Serbian Parliament adopted the Law on Investment. The new legislation replaces the Law on Foreign Investment and establishes a new institutional framework for subsidizing foreign and domestic investment. Within four months from 4 November 2015, the date when the law will come into force, the Development Agency of Serbia (Razvojna […]
September 2015 The Government of Serbia has expanded its campaign to reduce systemic risk and unclog bank lending channels by adopting the Strategy for the resolution of non-performing loans (Strategija za rešavanje problematičnih kredita, “Official Gazette RoS”, no. 72/2015, “Strategy”). The document was prepared jointly by the National Bank of Serbia (“NBS”) and several ministries […]
Personal bankruptcy has been introduced for the first time in Montenegro. The Personal Bankruptcy Act came into force on 22August 2015. The new law applies to consumers. Consumer is defined as an individual entering into a commercial transaction outside his/her commercial or professional activity. Consequently, an individual acting in his/her capacity of private entrepreneur or […]
After over 15 years, the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted a new Labour Act, which came into force on 20 August 2015. Overall, the new Labour Act keeps a number of provisions of the previous labour act and does not represent a radical reform of employer-employee relations. A number of changes, […]
