Recent investment awards against Serbia – taking due notice In one of the latest AKT blog-posts we came in touch with some issues in the field of protection of foreign investments through processes of arbitration, more particularly where potential problems could arise from sudden changes of the laws that regulate incentive measures for renewable energy production (https://www.akt.rs/en/publication/changes-of-incentive-measures-for-renewable-energy-production-and-protection-of-foreign-investors—possible-problems). In connection to this, to further show the practical significance of international investment protection, in this blog-post we will take a short glance at four investment arbitration cases that Serbia was involved with in the last few years. The short glance is primarily because most of the awards in these cases have not been made public yet. 1. Mera Investment v Serbia (ICSID Case No. ARB/17/2) In a November 30, 2018 decision an ICSID tribunal confirmed its jurisdiction over the claims of the Mera Investment Fund against Serbia. The tribunal rejected a series…

Patents and self-driving vehicles European Patent Office (EPO) in November 2018 has published a study on systems for self-driving vehicles (SDV) (https://www.epo.org/service-support/publications.html?pubid=177#tab3). This study shows that there is an increasing interest in investing in this area and that lately there has been a number of patent applications. The reason for this trend lays probably in the fact that SDVs are expected to show up on the market by 2025. In this way, the car manufacturers are trying to connect with advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, wireless communications, and many other software solutions. In last ten years there have been 18,000 patent applications in the field of SDV. Only in 2017 there have been 4000 of these applications. Compared to 2011, that shows an increase of 330%. Companies that have most of these applications are Samsung, Intel and Qualcomm. Most of the applications have been submitted in…

Changes of incentive measures for renewable energy production and protection of foreign investors – possible problems One of the very important issues for potential investors in this area is what happens when the Government decides to implement changes in law. These changes primarily concern the rights of privileged producers regarding incentive measures, after the date of coming into force of the power purchase agreement or changes to laws valid on the date on entry into a power purchase agreement, aimed at the reduction of rights or increase of obligations of the privileged producer, resulting in increase of their costs of doing business. In couple of previous AKT blog posts (https://www.akt.rs/en/publication/incentive-measures-for-the-producers-of-electricity-from-renewable-sources–part-i- and https://www.akt.rs/en/publication/incentive-measures-for-the-producers-of-electricity-from-renewable-sources–part-ii-), we covered some of the key features of the Regulation on incentive measures for the production of electricity from renewable sources and from high-efficiency electricity and thermal energy cogeneration (…

In the previous AKT blog-post on the topic of renewable energy production in Serbia (https://www.akt.rs/en/publication/incentive-measures-for-the-producers-of-electricity-from-renewable-sources–part-i-) we covered some of the key features of Regulation on incentive measures for the production of electricity from renewable sources and from high-efficiency electricity and thermal energy cogeneration (https://www.mre.gov.rs/doc/efikasnost-izvori/Uredba%20o%20podsticajnim%20merama%20ENG20092016.PDF), regarding which incentive measures for privileged producers exist, what are the required conditions for getting the incentive measures, and what is a Power Purchase Agreement. Now, what is left is to elaborate rights and obligations of privileged producers and other energy entities regarding the incentive measures, as well as the penal provisions. 1 – Rights of privileged producers and other energy entities regarding incentive measures On one side a privileged producer is entitled to incentive measures in accordance with the Energy Law and the Regulation, while on the other side the guaranteed supplier and the operator of the electricity transmission…

Fulfillment of mandatory eligibility requirements for participation in public procurement procedures and significance of registering a bidder in the appropriate register To be able to participate in public procurement procedures, as a bidder, there are several mandatory eligibility requirements that have to be fulfilled no matter the type of procedure. Besides those requirements, there can be also additional conditions that are not required by the law, but the contracting authority can require them in tender documents according to its needs. Conditions that every bidder needs to fulfill are stated in Article 75 of the Public Procurement Law (“Official Gazette of the RS”, No. 124 of 29 December 2012, No. 14 of 4 February 2015, No. 68 of 4 August 2015). Every bidder in a public procurement procedure must prove that: It is registered with the competent body, or entered in the appropriate register; It or its legal representative have…

Incentive measures for the producers of electricity from renewable sources (Part I) All projects involving renewable energy production are complex, require multiple steps and their implementation can be very expensive, from technological point of view, as well as from the administrative and legal angles. Maybe one of the most important thing for the potential investor, who for example wants to build a bio-gas energy plant, are incentive measures, that the government is willing to provide. In accordance with the Energy law (which was summarized in a previous AKT blog-post – https://www.akt.rs/en/publication/renewable-energy-production-in-serbia—the-general-framework-of-the-energy-law), Government enacted the Regulation on incentive measures for the production of electricity from renewable sources and from high-efficiency electricity and thermal energy cogeneration (http://www.mre.gov.rs/doc/efikasnost-izvori/Uredba%20o%20podsticajnim%20merama%20ENG20092016.PDF) as lex specialis. Purpose of this Regulation is to state in more details the incentive measures for the production of electricity from renewable energy sources, conditions for their realization, the duration of the incentive period,…