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Expertise
15/05/2024
Six years of GDPR: Europe-wide analysis shows increasingly dynamic sanction...
Highest GDPR fine of 1.2 billion euros imposed by the Irish data protection authority in May 2023 for a breach of the rules on international data transfers. Further fines imposed by this authority in 2023 amounted to hundreds of millions of euros. The main violations are “Insufficient legal basis for data processing” and “Failure to comply with the general principles of data processing”. The next most common violation is “Insufficient technical and organizational measures to ensure information security”. Spain tops the list of countries with the most fines for the fifth year in a row, followed by Italy and Romania. Ireland, Luxembourg and France have the highest average fines and total amounts per country. Berlin – Today, international law firm CMS has published the fifth edition of its annual Enforcement Tracker Report. The English-language report shows the developments of all publicly known GDPR fines based on CMS's own online database, GDPR Enforcement Tracker. The current edition of the report covers the analysis period between March 2023 and March 2024. 510 fines were added for the past year as of the editorial deadline on 1 March 2024. This brings the total number of data protection fines since the GDPR came into effect in May 2018 to 2,225, or 2,086 if only fines with full details such as the amount of the fine, date and authority are counted. The total amount of fines since the start of the survey is around 4.5 billion euros. This means that fines of around 1.7 billion euros have been added compared to last year’s Enforcement Tracker Report. This shows that authorities are no longer shying away from imposing high fines. The average fine for the entire reporting period was around 2.1 million euros - with high fines against “big tech” companies in 2021/22 and the first fine in the billions in 2023 having a particularly heavy impact.“At the top of the list of GDPR fine triggers is, once again, insufficient legal basis and non-compliance with the general data processing principles as well as insufficient technical and organisational measures. Companies should pay particular attention to this,” says Christian Runte, lawyer and partner at the international commercial law firm CMS Germany. Dr Alexander Schmid from the Enforcement Tracker team at CMS Germany adds: “In addition to data protection authorities, the courts have also increasingly dealt with the interpretation of the GDPR. For example, the Court of Justice of the European Union has further clarified the scope of data subjects' right of access. “These rulings create more clarity, but at the same time tighten the requirements for companies, which is why, in addition to a viable compliance concept, current developments will also be decisive for them in practice in the future.”Read the full Enforcement Tracker Report here; a summary can be found here. Pressekon­takt presse@cms-hs. com
17/04/2024
CMS advises Austrian Airlines on sale of Austrian Airlines Technik Bratislava
Press release - 17 April 2024An international team of CMS lawyers has provided comprehensive legal advice to Austrian Airlines AG on the sale of the Slovakian company Austrian Airlines Technik Bratislava (ATB) to the Dutch aircraft maintenance provider SAMCO Aircraft Main­ten­ance. Es­tab­lished in 2006, ATB has been offering first-class maintenance services specifically to regional aircraft operators. Closing the deal in early April, CMS supported the company’s successful sale to SAMCO Aircraft Maintenance, which expands its base maintenance footprint in Europe as a consequence. In the course of the acquisition, the CMS team contributed its international expertise in corporate law/M&A matters and also provided extensive legal advice on financing aspects and competition law. “We are excited to have supported Austrian Airlines on this transaction and are pleased that our expertise in cross-border M&A matters contributed to the smooth execution of the deal,” says Alexander Rakosi, a partner at CMS and a member of the corporate transactions team in Vienna. The CMS core transaction team consisted of partners Alexander Rakosi and Florian Mayer (both Vienna, Corporate/M&A) and attorney-at-law Martina Gavalec (Bratislava, Corporate/M&A), and was supported by partner Dieter Zandler (Vienna, Antitrust), associate Rebecca Herlitz (Vienna, Corporate), associate Ján Ševčík (Bratislava, Dispute Resolution), and legal trainee Matthias Torggler (Vienna, Corporate Transactions). On the buyer side, BarentsKrans (Netherlands) and Kinstellar (Slovakia) were involved in the transaction.
22/03/2024
CMS European M&A Study 2024
Press release - 22 March 2024
05/02/2024
CMS strengthens its teams in Vienna and CEE with another round of partner...
Press release - 5 February 2024
28/11/2023
CMS launches International Digital Regulation Hub providing a clear roadmap...
All businesses should be prepared to grasp the opportunities in digital regulation 
04/10/2023
ESG as the new imperative in real estate
Environmental, social, and ethical criteria will define the future of Austria’s real estate sector
22/05/2023
Europe-wide analysis on the fifth anniversary of the GDPR reveals data...
European data protection authorities imposed fines totalling over 2.7 billion euros in more than 1,500 publicly known cases for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation, which has been in...
02/02/2022
CMS strengthens its leadership team in CEE
Nedeljko Velisavljević promoted to CEE Partner
11/01/2022
CMS appoints Chief Marketing Officer
Frankfurt, 11 January 2022
29/07/2021
New Executive Director for CMS
Frankfurt, 29 July 2021
26/04/2021
CMS named CEE Law Firm of the Year at Chambers Europe Awards 2021
International law firm CMS has been named CEE Law Firm of the Year at the Chambers Europe Awards, where CMS has once again been recognised as the leading law firm in Central and Eastern Europe. The Chambers...
18/09/2020
CMS Bratislava: New Partners
Oliver Werner takes over from Peter Šimo and new partner Soňa Hanková is joining the team of CMS Brat­is­lava.  The team of CMS Bratislava was reinforced at the partner level. Soňa Hanková joined...