“We have come to a really huge size when it comes to litigation. We now have 33 lawyers for litigation, plus the auxiliary personnel. Quantitative growth is no longer a target above this size, which is even too large for the Romanian market,” stated Cosmin Vasile.
Court information shows banks are the clients providing most of the work for ZRP litigators. The firm assists clients such as Raiffeisen, Emporiki, Piraeus and BRD, but also has clients among companies such as Petrom, Renault Trucks or Romaqua Group.
As regards arbitrage, the company is involved in 11 international arbitrage files and 5 domestic ones, according to Vasile.
On the domestic business law market, litigation now makes one of the main sources of income. The field has grown after the crisis onset. The shift from real estate, the main area before the crisis, to litigation has pushed a series of domestic firms to adapt.
According to Vasile, one of the main issues on the law market now is the “total lack of transparency in lawyer-client communication”, making many clients unable to distinguish between the types of lawyers they need.
“From this point of view, new regulation will not bring anything good as they will freeze communication between firms and clients,” said Vasile.
The national union of Romania’s bars (UNBR) has banned lawyers from communicating in the press or to clients information related, among others, to the files they are involved in or the clients they represent.
Another hindrance on the market is the lack of new money. Clients do not have money to carry out investments and banks are much more demanding in choosing projects to fund. A direct outcome of this is a decline in law firms’ fees. Thus, lawyers consider the value of the market stalled last year despite the rising activity volume.
Vasile says “large law firms can grow no more (in terms of receipts i.e.), but they are not faring badly. They can stay where they are. A small or medium-sized company that is not exposed only to an industry or a small number of clients has stability and premises to grow as much as it further adapts to needs,” said the lawyer.
A special category is made up of foreign law firms present in Romania, which do not have the same flexibility as domestic players in terms of fees.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)