Category: News

The ITR Tax Awards recognise the best tax consultants and tax lawyers every year. bpv Huegel was awarded twice this year.

London/Vienna, 20 September 2024. bpv Huegel’s tax team was honoured as “Tax Litigation Law Firm of the Year – Austria” and “Transfer Pricing Law Firm of the Year – Austria” at the ITR Tax Awards in London. The team already won the “Tax Disputes Firm of the Year – Austria” award in 2021 and 2022. Last year, the work was crowned with the “Tax Firm of the Year – Austria” award.

“We are particularly proud of the fact that we have been one of the top tax firms in Austria for years and have been honoured twice this year. The awards show that our tireless commitment to excellence is not only recognised in Austria, but also beyond,” says Gerald Schachner, head of the tax group.

Kornelia Wittmann, tax partner, is delighted: “The fact that we have now been honoured by ITR a total of five times in the last four years is a very special success.” Nicolas Wolski, tax partner, adds: “We tax partners are very proud of this team success, which is possible above all because all team members have been contributing to it for years with their outstanding performance. We are therefore particularly pleased that all team members have also been individually ranked by ITR.” 

The International Tax Review, the leading publication for the tax industry, annually honours the most successful tax law firms in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa). This year, the ITR Tax Awards were presented for the 20th time. In addition to the size and innovative strength of the law firms, a jury of experts assessed the complexity of the projects handled.

Press release

Paul Pfeifenberger (36) specialises in real estate and has been with bpv Huegel since 2015.

05 September 2024. Law firm bpv Huegel is strengthening its circle of partners in real estate and has appointed Paul Pfeifenberger as a partner.

His focus is on non-profit property developers as well as real estate developers and industrial companies in transactions with project properties and the entire value chain of property development projects.

Paul Pfeifenberger also advises on labour & employment with a focus on corporate transactions, where he also brings a profound practical experience from his previous work in the Organisation of the Chamber of Commerce.

Christoph Nauer, Co-Managing Partner of bpv Huegel, congratulates the new partner: “I am particularly pleased that Paul Pfeifenberger started at bpv Huegel as an associate. He has done outstanding work in recent years and has made a significant contribution to our success. We are delighted that he is now one of the partners in our firm.”

We are pleased to announce that Arthur Braun has been recommended again by Who’s Who Legal (WWL) and is ranked among the top nine competition lawyers in the Czech Republic for 2024!

Congratulations, Arthur, on your repeated and well-deserved recognition!

Through interviews with their researchers, the publication gathers the views, skills and knowledge of leading competition lawyers and economists around the world. The individuals recognized receives the highest number of nominations from peers, corporate advisors, clients and various market sources during WWL’s research period.

The company transfer also successfully secures the future of SPORT 2000 in Austria.

20 June 2024. Zentrasport Österreich e. Gen. sells its operating business to ANWR sports GmbH, a company of the ANWR Group. In particular, services for sports retailers were transferred. A team from bpv Huegel advised Zentrasport on this sale. The sale follows a successful reorganization procedure in the self-administration of Zentrasport, which bpv Huegel structured and supported.

The sale was an important step towards securing the future of the Austrian sports retailer and preserving jobs at the Austrian site in Ohlsdorf. The affiliated Austrian sports retailers will have a strong partner in the ANWR GROUP, and the expertise of the Austrian organisation based in Ohlsdorf will contribute to strengthening SPORT 2000’s international presence, Holger Schwarting, member of the Zentrasport Management Board, is quoted as saying about the transaction.

ANWR GROUP eG, headquartered in Mainhausen (Hesse), is one of the highest-turnover retail cooperatives in Europe with a settlement volume of EUR 20.7 billion (2023) and a focus on the shoe, sporting, and leather goods trade. Around 20,000 medium-sized companies are affiliated to the ANWR Group via its two credit institutions – DZB BANK GmbH and AKTIVBANK AG. The group itself employs around 1,400 people.

Under the lead of Elke Napokoj (Corporate/M&A) and Bernhard Schatz (Insolvencies/Restructuring), Michaela Pelinka (Corporate/M&A) and Thomas Capek (Insolvencies/Restructuring) advised on the transaction in the bpv Huegel team.

STRABAG SE is planning to acquire together with PORR AG technical operations management and construction projects divisions of Vienna General Hospital (AKH Wien), Austrian project development business and thermal spa holdings in Austria. A team of bpv Huegel is advising STRABAG SE on the transaction.

Vienna, 14 May 2024. STRABAG has announced to intend to acquire parts of VAMED Group together with PORR AG via a joint holding company for a total purchase price of about EUR 90 million. The seller is VAMED AG, which is majority owned by Fresenius SE & Co KGaA of Germany.

The object of the transaction is VAMED-KMB Krankenhausmanagement und Betriebsführungsges.m.b.H. (VKMB) and VAMED Standortentwicklung und Engineering GmbH (VSG), comprising the technical operations management and construction projects divisions of Vienna General Hospital (AKH Wien), including the Austrian project development business and thermal spa holdings in Austria.

The purchase agreement was signed by the joint holding company of STRABAG SE and PORR AG. PORR AG and STRABAG SE will each hold half of the joint holding company. STRABAG SE still requires approval from its Supervisory Board in order to finalise the transaction. The transaction is also subject to regulatory approval, including approval by the relevant competition authorities.

The transaction expands STRABAG’s service portfolio in technical facility management to include the medical sector while enhancing its expertise in project development in the healthcare sector. STRABAG SE is a European-based technology group for construction services with around 86,000 employees generating an annual output volume of around EUR 19 billion.

The transaction was led in-house by Meera Ramakrishnan (Head of Corporate Austria).

Led by Christoph Nauer (Corporate/M&A, Capital Markets) and Thomas Lettau (Corporate/M&A), the bpv Huegel transaction team included: Roland Juill (Corporate/M&A), Astrid Ablasser-Neuhuber (Antitrust Law), Gerhard Fussenegger (Antitrust Law, FDI), Nicolas Wolski (Tax Law), Lucas Hora (Tax Law), Florian Plattner (Contract Law, Litigation), Wolfgang Berger (Public Procurement Law), Paul Pfeifenberger (Labor Law), Anna Zirkler (Corporate/M&A) and Barbara Valente (Corporate/M&A).

Financial advisors were PwC (Gerald Eibisberger and Georg Schabetsberger) for STRABAG SE and BDO (Markus Bartl and Raffaela Uhl) for PORR AG. KPMG Law (Wendelin Ettmayer and Stephanie Sauer) provided legal advice to PORR AG. A team of Latham & Watkins advised Fresenius and VAMED AG as seller on the transaction.

Vienna, April 2024. bpv Huegel has advised Verbund AG on the acquisition of a wind farm in the Austrian federal state of Burgenland with a total nominal output of 10.15 MW. The wind farm was sold in a bidding process. The seller is a private developer and operator of wind farms.

Thomas Lettau (Partner, Co-Head Corporate/M&A) led the bpv Huegel team which advised Verbund AG on all legal aspects of the successful transaction. In addition to corporate law matters and energy law expertise, the advice included the structuring of the transaction as well as the negotiation and finalisation of the transaction documents.

bpv Huegel regularly advises energy suppliers and investors on the acquisition and sale of assets and equity interests in the energy sector, including Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 4 on the sale of its stake in Energie Steiermark.

Advisor to Verbund AG, bpv Huegel:

Thomas Lettau (Partner, Co-Head Corporate/M&A)
Christian Schneider (Partner, Head of Public Economic Law)
Nicolas Wolski (Partner, Tax Law)
Johannes Mitterecker (Attorney at Law, Corporate/M&A)
Tim Pasternak (Attorney at Law, Corporate/M&A)
Paul Pfeifenberger (Attorney at Law, Real Estate Law)
Anna Zirkler (Associate, Corporate/M&A)

13 March 2024. bpv Huegel advised the investors and the management on the sale of a majority stake in EYYES GmbH to the German Vector Informatik GmbH.

A team of bpv Huegel led by Thomas Lettau (Partner, Co-Head Corporate/M&A) structured the sales process and assisted the investors and the management in negotiating and finalising the transaction agreements.

bpv Huegel has already advised an investor on the acquisition of a stake in EYYES GmbH in 2019.

EYYES is a pioneer in the field of driving assistance solutions and traffic detection with artificial intelligence based on camera sensor technology.

With 33 locations worldwide and more than 4,000 employees, Vector supports its customers with a professional platform with tools, software components and services for the development of embedded systems.

The bpv Huegel team was led by Thomas Lettau and included Johannes Mitterecker, Tim Pasternak, Anna Zirkler (all Corporate /M&A) and Nicolas Wolski (Tax Law).

With NXAI, the potentially ground breaking European Large Language Model technology xLSTM will be further developed.

14 February 2024. AI pioneer Sepp Hochreiter, Netural X and Stefan Pierer’s PIERER Digital Holding founded the company NXAI GmbH with the help of bpv Huegel. NXAI will drive the development and promotion of cutting-edge European AI research and innovative AI solutions at the highest level for the international market. NXAI is focusing on the potentially ground breaking European Large Language Model technology xLSTM.

A team of bpv Huegel led by Florian Neumayr and Stefan Gaug advised Sepp Hochreiter on the formation of the joint venture company and the participation agreement in this high-profile transaction in the technology sector. A team of Oberhammer Rechtsanwälte acted for PIERER Digital Holding and Netural X.

The national and international media response was significant. The German newspaper Handelsblatt, for example, ran the headline in its AI briefing: “Sepp versus Sam – German AI researcher plans a better ChatGPT” in reference to Sam Altman, the US entrepreneur, investor, software developer and CEO of OpenAI.

PIERER Digital Holding GmbH holds 37 percent of NXAI, the remaining shares are held by Netural X (37 percent) and Sepp Hochreiter (26 percent).

Further information: www.nx-ai.com

About Sepp Hochreiter

Sepp Hochreiter is one of the most renowned AI researchers. In 1991, he developed the LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) technology as a cornerstone, paving the way for today’s artificial intelligence. The technology was the leading method in speech processing and text analysis until 2017 and has been used billions of times in smartphones to date. Sepp Hochreiter is Director of the University Institute for Machine Learning and Head of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Linz Institute of Technology (LIT).