COBALT

Managing Partners: Jaanus Mody (Estonia), Dace Silava-Tomsone (Latvia), Lauris Liepa (Latvia), Dr Irmantas Norkus (Lithuania)

Number of partners: 39

Number of lawyers: 220

Languages: English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Swedish

Firm Overview

COBALT is a closely integrated alliance of top-tier law offices across the Baltics with offices in Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius, uniting more than 250 attorneys and support staff.

As a full-service law firm with extensive knowledge, we offer leading-edge legal solutions in all key areas of business law and regularly represent top international and regional businesses, financial institutions, state and local governments, global top law firms, and the region's most promising start-ups.

Our offices are members of Mindful Business Charter, International Bar Association, International Trademark Association, Ius laboris, and Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance. COBALT is the Estonian member firm of Lex Mundi and World Service Group.

Banking, Finance & Capital Markets

Our top-ranked lawyers provide advice on a wide variety of financing and capital market transactions, complex financing strategies, and financial regulatory and compliance issues. We are proud of our longstanding relationships with both established financial institutions and new market participants utilizing technology to revolutionize the financial services industry. Our clients include local and international financial institutions, government agencies, international organizations, investment funds, private and publicly-listed companies raising equity and debt financing, and the most promising FinTech players in the region. In addition, we consult representatives from the banking industry on policy issues to help develop a better regulatory landscape.

We have provided services for lenders and borrowers, and issuers and underwriters in domestic and cross-border financing, as well as DCM and ECM transactions across all industries. Our experience includes debt and equity offerings, listings on regulated markets, derivatives, and structured finance. We have also advised on the most significant financial sector M&A transactions in the Baltic region and have assisted in takeover offers for shares in local listed companies.

Corporate Transactions & M&A

As the Baltic market leader in this field, COBALT is pleased to be the first choice for local and international clients in the largest and most complex public and private M&A transactions. Not only do we cover straightforward M&A cases and private equity transactions, but also spin-offs, joint ventures, management buyouts, and corporate restructuring processes. By working closely with other practice groups, we can respond to the individual requirements of each transaction and develop tailored solutions for each client.

Corporate Advisory & Employment

Our Corporate and Employment team provides legal advice to local and international companies' management and shareholders on both routine and complex corporate and employment matters. We offer support to clients just launching their business, as well as assist with corporate governance, risk management, board liability, employment law, regulatory matters, maintaining good relations with authorities, restructuring, and liquidation.

Dispute Resolution

Our Dispute Resolution team assists clients when a legal conflict is anticipated, needs to be managed, avoided, or solved. Focusing on our clients' needs, we have specialist and highly experienced lawyers for complex litigation, restructuring and insolvency, white-collar cases, internal investigations, public administrative and constitutional law questions, public procurement disputes, arbitration, and mediation, as well as private wealth matters.

EU & Competition

Competition, procurement, and state aid are among COBALT’s core business areas. Our experts are actively engaged as litigators and non-governmental advisors in the developing fields of competitive neutrality and the regulation of superior bargaining power. Our multilingual team draws on case law from across Europe. Our business law practitioners and public law experts utilize each other's strengths to assist clients in navigating the numerous level-playing-field regulations and supervisory authorities.Our experts have a wealth of experience representing clients before EU administrative bodies and courts.

IP, IT & Data Protection

Our skilled and sizable team of IP/IT lawyers has the required industry business understanding and years of experience for advising and representing clients in the respective areas and before supervisory authorities and government bodies. We provide advice and representation regarding patents, trademarks, and design registration, including protection and transactions, the IT and communications sector, data protection regulations, copyright and related rights pharmaceuticals, healthcare and life sciences, product liability, consumer protection, media law, and beyond.

Real Estate, Energy & Environment

Our seasoned team caters to the varied needs of clients in the real estate and energy sectors, including real estate transactions, tenancy relationships, property and infrastructure development, energy sector transactions, regulatory aspects, and environmental matters, among others. Additionally, we specialize in processes related to climate change, such as transitioning to renewables, reducing carbon emissions, navigating subsidy schemes, and complying with increasingly strict regulations.

During years of practice, our dedicated specialists have gained invaluable experience from advising clients on some of the most significant real estate transactions, complex property, energy, and infrastructure development projects, and demanding regulatory issues. This places us in an ideal position to provide clients with efficient and practical advice, regardless of how complicated and specific the issues may be from the real estate, energy, and environmental fields.

Tax

Our Tax team houses more than fifteen full-time tax professionals across our three offices, with diverse specialist and professional backgrounds. Paired with years of experience and a proven track record, this allows us to offer our clients the best support in day-to-day tax matters, managing tax risks, structuring M&A transactions, and representing clients in the most complex taxation disputes.

ESG

Environmental, social and governance issues (ESG) have risen to the top of the business agenda. This shift is driven by the European Green Deal and the development of the legal framework, as well as growing expectations from investors, customers, supervisory bodies, employees, and other stakeholders. Our legal expertise is enhanced through collaboration with leading professionals in sustainability management, financial assessments, and IT solutions. This collaborative effort enables us to deliver integrated, one-stop solutions tailored to meet your diverse needs. Our team will help you to identify ESG-related risks, mitigate their potential impacts, and pinpoint new business opportunities. We can help you determine regulatory requirements applicable to you, find optimal solutions to fulfil them and integrate relevant aspects into your daily business operations (e.g., contracts with suppliers, clients and other partners, strategic planning, internal reporting etc.) regardless of the size, field of activity and maturity level of your company.

International desks

COBALT provides legal assistance for inbound and outbound cross-border business relations between the Baltic States and Finland, as well as for domestic companies entering markets in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, and for investors from German-speaking countries. We offer free legal services in our areas of expertise to companies and people harmed by attacks on Ukraine, also to Ukrainians fleeing the war and seeking refuge in the Baltics.