Olga Sipka is a Special Counsel in the Belgrade office and the co-head of the firm-wide Competition & State Aid service line.

Olga’s core practices include competition and antitrust, regulatory and compliance. She boasts significant, broad-based experience advising and representing leading Serbian and international companies on numerous competition, data protection, corporate, and regulatory projects covering Serbia and the Western Balkans. Her experience extends across a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, insurance, banking, consumer goods, telecommunications, IT and healthcare.

Olga has also held/developed a number of workshops, training sessions and presentations on compliance with competition, regulatory, anti-bribery, white collar and data protection laws. Olga regularly advises international institutions and state bodies on policy options and facilitates the development and the dialogue between the relevant stakeholders.

RECENT ENGAGEMENTS INCLUDE ADVISING

COMPETITION & STATE AID*

• Working with the SERBIAN COMPETITION AUTHORITY and THE WORLD BANK on a sector inquiry into the Serbian Bus Sector Transport Market and the Serbian Rail Cargo Market.
• Advising on the competition law aspects of the AIK Bank/Alpha Bank transaction – one of the largest mergers in the banking sector in Serbia.
• Multijurisdictional merger control assessments and merger control filings in the Western Balkans. Olga has supported close to a 100 merger control applications in the last 10 years of practice. Olga regularly manages filings in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania.
• WORLD BANK and OECD Product Market Regulation analysis separately for Montenegro and Serbia. This was the first ever data collection and assessment of the regulatory barriers to competition in a broad range of key policy areas and individual sectors: energy, telecom, transport, services markets etc.
• Representing clients active in different sectors (insurance, pharma, IT sector) in antitrust proceedings before the Serbian Competition Authority.

Compliance, risk & sensitive investigations*

• Developing a data protection compliance program and reviewing relevant compliance aspects in one of the largest generic pharmaceutical producers in Serbia and Montenegro, including the full alignment with all compliance aspects (data protection, anticorruption, sanctions, pharma regulation).
• Representing and advising clients in several high-profile data protection investigations before the Serbian Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection.
• Developing a data protection and anticorruption compliance program for one of the largest healthcare institutions in Serbia, organizing training for over a hundred health care professionals, drafting compliance manuals and rulebooks, dissemination etc.
• Advising on the cyber security and compliance aspects regarding the launch of the e-documents service tools by several companies active in the IT sector.
• Developing a cross-border multijurisdictional data protection compliance program for a world-wide home appliance producer
• Developing regional transfer impact assessments and a day-to-day data protection advice for several multinational groups active in Serbia and Montenegro.

Other areas*

• Advising in the course of the expansion into Serbia of Agilcon, the largest regional salesforce consulting partner, as well as corporate and intellectual property support.
• Advising on the expansion into Serbia of a new dark fiber telecom provider, including corporate support and regulatory advice (obtaining permits etc.).
• Assisting and advising a leading IT company in Serbia on termination of employment, reorganisation of staffing for top executives, capital markets, corporate and other various issues.
• Support in the termination/liquidation of a business in Serbia for Webasto, an international automotive company.
• Regular advice on commercial policy and distributorship arrangements from the various legal aspects including dispute resolution, commercial terms, multijurisdictional regional aspects for Bambi a.d., a leading confectionery producer and member of Coca Cola Hellenic group.

*Experience prior to joining Kinstellar.

EDUCATION

• 2008 – 2009: New York University, USA, LL.M.
• 2002 – 2007: University of Belgrade, Serbia, Faculty of Law, LL.B.

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION

Belgrade Bar Association

LANGUAGES

Serbian, English