Platis – Anastassiadis & Associates Law Partnership

Platis – Anastassiadis & Associates Law Partnership is the associated law firm of EY in Greece with a core team of 45 lawyers. The firm was established in 2011 and in a short period of time, has developed into a leading Greek law firm, both in conventional as well as innovative law fields. It is part of the global EY Law network, spanning in 90+ jurisdictions and comprising more than 3,500 lawyers.

Platis-Anastassiadis & Associates Law Partnership combines high-quality legal services beyond geographical boundaries, with a focus on business perspective, practicality and industry-specific knowledge. Based on such an approach, the lawyers of the firm work closely with other EY professionals to provide cross-sectoral offerings and serve as an one-stop shop for foreign and national investors.

Our lawyers understand the increasingly complex commercial, corporate, regulatory and tax laws of the global economy. The firm provides holistic guidance around strategic business decisions, reducing the gap between business advisors and legal counsels, and offering support services that increase efficiency and reduce costs of both strategic as well routine legal activities.

Areas of practice: The firm advises on every aspect of Greek corporate and commercial law; transactions; M&As; competition law; civil law; banking and finance; data privacy and digital law; labour law; restructuring and insolvency law and tax law.

Corporate and commercial: The firm advises clients on their day-to-day corporate law issues; corporate restructuring; establishment of legal entities and branches; corporate secretarial services; drafting commercial agreements of any kind; representing clients within the frames of commercial litigation.

Transaction and M&A: The firm provides full legal support with regard to transactions and M&A, ranging from legal due diligence in a wide caliber of industries, to drafting all necessary transaction documents, providing legal support during negotiation and implementation, including drafting all necessary corporate resolutions and ancillary contractual documents. For the transaction and M&A services the firm often cooperates with other EY professionals, including valuation and transaction advisory.

Competition law: The firm provides full legal support on competition law, including antitrust compliance; addressing implications arising from all aspects of clients’ business; providing legal support within the frames of sectoral inquires by the Hellenic Competition Commission; legal advice within the frames of state aid;  establishing distribution networks; merger filings; providing legal support within the frames of agency agreements.

Banking and finance: The firm provides advice on banking and capital markets regulations; credit and financial institutions’ compliance requirements; assisting regulated entities with their entrance into the Greek banking and finance market and providing support throughout the establishment procedure;  NPLs legal framework, as well as stock exchange and securities regulations. The firm also acts as legal counsels in privatisation projects.

Digital law: Platis Anastassiadis has invested in developing a practice to tackle all legal issues related with the application of new technologies. It is the leading firm in the provision of legal services in the field of data protection law in Greece. The firm has supported the compliance of major corporations with the General Data Protection Regulation and offers legal support to data protection officers and businesses across the Greek market. The firm also provides all-round legal services to prominent clients in the Greek TMT and Banking sector and is engaged in high-profile projects of EY related to innovative technologies, such as open banking, big data, 5G, IoT, blockchain and artificial intelligence. Its expert digital law team consists of five business-oriented professionals with significant experience on the field, cross-sectoral practice and in-depth knowledge of EU and Greek digital law.

Employment law: The firm has a broad experience on a wide variety of labour law matters of individual or collective nature such as HR due diligence, collective redundancies, termination of executive personnel, company reorganisations, transfer of undertakings, compensation and benefits and from day-to-day counselling, to negotiations and sophisticated litigation. The practice is recommended for its ‘excellent knowledge of Greek and EU labor law’ and is particularly knowledgeable of labor matters in the energy, financial services, retail, shipping, human resources and tourism sectors.

Restructuring and insolvency: The firm’s dedicated Insolvency and Restructuring team has risen to become a market leader, demonstrating a long record of successful projects in: common and special insolvency, pre-bankruptcy and bankruptcy procedures, as well as special administration and special liquidation procedures. More specifically the team is a pioneer in the Special Administration procedures of law 4307/2014 by already handling multiple debtors under the special administration regime, where it provides holistic services from the filing of the petition before the courts until the final distribution of proceeds, on behalf of the firm’s clients, i.e. Greek Systemic Banks (creditors). In addition, the Insolvency and Restructuring team is the legal advisor of numerous restructuring proceedings in a wide range of companies and relevant procedures.

Healthcare and life sciences The combined expertise of a dedicated multidisciplinary team within the firm is uniquely positioned to meet the diversified needs of clients active in the healthcare and life sciences sectors. We provide creative and business-oriented advice on a variety of matters puzzling clients in the pharmaceuticals, medical devices and cosmetics industries, as well as in the medicinal and industrial cannabis sectors. Our specialized services cover compliance and ethics, audits and investigations, competition and anti-trust, data privacy, M&As, regulatory and licensing requirements, commercial collaborations and promotional activities.

Tax law: The tax controversy team consists of experienced professionals with a strong academic legal and economic background and an business acumen that distinguishes them from the rest of the law firms in the Greek market. The tax controversy services offered by the firm include support and representation of the clients during all stages of a tax audit, i.e. towards the tax authorities before the issuance of tax assessments, at the stage of the quasi-judicial appeal before the Tax Dispute Resolution Directorate and eventually at the level of courts up to the Greek Supreme Court (Συμβούλιο της Επικρατείας ΣτΕ). The current success rate of the firm at court level is unprecedented. This is the reason a rising number of Greek and foreign multinational clients are entrusting the firm with the resolution of their disputes with the Greek tax authorities.