Media, Entertainment & Sports

Recent matters DGKV’s Media team has worked on include:

• Advising PPF a.s. on the Bulgarian-legal aspects of its acquisitions of Telenor and Central Europe Media Enterprises.
• Advising Blantyre Capital Limited, BlackRock, EBRD, and the Bulgarian Development Bank on the restructuring of Bulsatcom EAD, the leading satellite TV provider in Bulgaria.
• Representing Economedia before the competent Bulgarian courts in appealing a decision of the Council of Electronic Media – Bulgaria’s electronic media regulatory authority – defining it as an audio-visual media service provider.
• Advising the Walt Disney Co. on the Bulgarian-law aspects of and assisting it with the implementation in Bulgaria of its global acquisition of the major entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox.
• Advising leading global telecommunication operators on telecom-regulatory matters and representing them before the Communications Regulation Commission with respect to their operations in Bulgaria, as well as on contractual matters vis-à-vis their clients in Bulgaria.
• Advising global tech companies, OTT operators, and platforms on telecom-regulatory, AdTech, data-breach-notification, and security-incident procedures, as well as on consumer-protection and other compliance requirements associated with their operations in Bulgaria.
• Advising Bulgarian digital monetization platform PubGalaxy on its acquisition by Azerion.
• Advising Meta (Facebook Inc.) on all aspects of the protection and enforcement of its trademark rights in Bulgaria, including the filing of oppositions, negotiations with owners of conflicting signs or applications, infringement litigation, and settlement negotiations, as well as, in recent years, hate-speech matters, election-campaign coverage, and the obligation to assist Bulgarian authorities in cases where disclosure of user data is requested.
• Advising a US premium cable and satellite-television-network provider on privacy matters and consumer-protection regulations, among other things related to providing access to content in Bulgaria.
• Advising video-sharing platforms and streaming-services providers on the audio-visual-regulatory, consumer-protection, copyright, and data-protection compliance of its services through over-the-top content and video-sharing platforms.
• Advising a private-investment group on the acquisition of one of the largest Bulgarian telecom operators.
• Advising a global-entertainment company in relation to assignment-of-rights documents and on vesting and licensing of performers’ rights thereunder, as well as with regard to the payments due for secondary use of dubbed materials.