Lawyers analysed special levy for banks (top deals of the year)

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In banking and finance, nearly all references submitted to The Slovak Spectator and the Sme daily by Slovakia’s largest law firms are similar – they mainly concern the preparation of transaction documentation for the emission of bonds, loan refinancing or loans for merger and acquisition funding. Two references, practically equal despite involving different clients and different law firms, stand out.

Bank levy

The TaylorWessing e/n/w/c law firm, the tenth-largest in banking and finance section of the Largest in Law rankings, analysed the possible legal claims related to special bank levies. The Škubla & Partneri law firm provided the same service for the Prima Banka bank. Other banks on the Slovak market have very likely used legal services in the same regard, but the information has not been made public.

The reason why banks wanted such analyses is due to the political situation in the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. At times, it seemed like the then-government of Igor Matovič would not scrap the special bank levy even though it would have been in violation of European rules. The levy was introduced by the previous government of Robert Fico as a temporary measure that ended up being a permanent tool for the additional taxation of banks.