Ivo specializes in in the area of M&A and corporate law, cross-border investments in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, export, energy and industry projects and their financing, contracts and litigation. Ivo renders services pursuant to Czech and Slovak law.

Ivo has been working for 35 years as a legal practitioner, he worked for 22 years at international law firms, 18 of which at the Prague and Bratislava offices of White & Case where he was a partner from 2001 to 2014.

Prior to co-founding BADOKH, he represented a broad range of domestic and foreign high-profile clients in top transactions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and in some of the largest acquisitions and projects conducted by Czech firms abroad in the past twenty years. Ivo advised on large-scale domestic and cross-border acquisitions on the buyer’s side (e.g. Energo-Pro with respect to the acquisition of E.on Bulgaria, ČEZ with respect to the acquisition of Slovenské elektrárne, a.s., Zentiva, a.s., with respect to the acquisition of Sicomed in Romania, MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas plc., with respect to the acquisition of Slovnaft, a.s., or Electricité de France International with respect to the acquisition of Stredoslovenská energetika, a.s.), but also on the seller’s side, representing e.g. RWE in the sale of Net4Gas or the Slovak Republic in privatizing Slovenská sporiteľňa, a.s., Všeobecná úverová banka, a.s., Slovenské telekomunikácie, a.s. or Transpetrol, a.s.

Ivo is a leading expert in the field of export and project financing, in which he represented Czech, Slovak, and foreign financial institutions with respect to more than 100 projects. In banking and finance, he was involved in numerous high-profile transactions, including the structuring of syndicated/club loans and acquisition financing for the acquisition of companies and real property. Among Ivo’s clients were BAWAG Bank CZ (former Interbanka), Citibank Prague and Bratislava, the Czech Export Bank (Česká exportní banka), Česká spořitelna, ČSOB Prague and Bratislava, EBRD, Eximbanka Slovensko (the Export-Import Bank of the Slovak Republic), the Deposit Insurance Fund, HSH Nordbank, Rabobank, Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, Slovenská spořitelna, UniCredit ČR and SR, VÚB Bratislava and Prague, West LB or Živnobanka, as well as leading Czech and Slovak corporations and financial investors.

Ivo has been a member of the Czech Bar Association since 1994 and of the Slovak Bar Association since 1995. He is also a court-appointed translator for English and Slovak.

Ivo Bárta authored the chapter on the legal framework for M&A transactions in the Czech Republic for the publication “A Practitioner’s Guide to Takeovers and Mergers in the European Union” (City and Financial Publishing, 2002, 2005 and 2008). He was teaching at the Faculty of Law of Charles University, Prague, as an external lecturer.