Kinstellar
Kinstellar is an international law firm operating in Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey and Central Asia. It was formed in 2008 from the Bratislava, Bucharest, Budapest and Prague offices of Linklaters, and has since expanded into Serbia, Turkey and Kazakhstan. The firm employs more than 130 lawyers, with a focus on business law in emerging markets. The firm's rankings by international legal directories have consistently improved since the spinoff from Linklaters.
History
Kinstellar's Prague office, founded in 1992 as a joint venture of member firms of the Alliance of European Lawyers, became part of Linklaters & Alliance in 1999. The Bucharest and Bratislava practices were established in 1993 and operated as Burns Schwartz, a regional Central European law firm, until January 2000 when they merged with Linklaters. The Budapest office was established by Linklaters in 2000. In November 2008, the four CEE offices became a separate practice again, as they were spun off into a regional independent firm under the name Kinstellar (an anagram of Linklaters). Kinstellar opened offices in Belgrade and Istanbul in 2010, and in Almaty in 2013, integrating a team from Dentons.
Practice areas
Kinstellar has the following main practice areas:
- Banking, Finance and Capital Markets
- Competition and State Aid
- Compliance, Risk and Sensitive Investigations
- Dispute Resolution
- Employment and Labour Law
- Energy
- Infrastructure and Projects
- Life Sciences and Healthcare
- M&A and Corporate
- Private Equity
- Real Estate
- Restructuring & Insolvency
- Tax
- Telecoms, Media & Technology
Offices
- Almaty, Kazakhstan
- Belgrade, Serbia
- Bratislava, Slovakia
- Bucharest, Romania
- Budapest, Hungary
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Prague, Czech Republic
Awards and Recognitions
- M&A Law Firm of the Year (Turkey), 2013, Financial Times & Mergermarket European M&A Awards
- Law Firm of the Year (Hungary), 2012, 2013, IFLR European Awards
- Tax Firm of the Year (Hungary), 2012, DealMakers Annual Tax Awards
- Central & Eastern Europe Client Service Award, 2012, Chambers Europe
- Emerging Law Firm of the Year, 2010, The Lawyer European Awards
- Tax Firm of the Year (Hungary), 2009, International Tax Review