Milan ParivodićSerbianCyrillic Милан Париводић was the Minister of Foreign Economic Relations in the Government of Serbia from 2004 to 2007. Also, between 14 November 2006 and 15 May 2007, he served as the acting Minister of Finance. Between 2007 and 2008 he was the advisor to the Prime Minister of Serbia for economy and law.
Education
Parivodić graduated in Laws in 1990. He was awarded Master of Laws in 1995 defending thesis “International Distribution Agreements”. In 2002 Parivodić was awarded Doctorate in Laws by defending doctoral thesis “Franchising Contracts”. All these degrees he earned from the Faculty of Laws of the University of Belgrade. He was also awarded an LLM degree from University College London in 1997. Took and passed the Serbian Bar Examination in 2008, and IP Attorney examination in 2000.
University and Law Work
Milan Parivodić was a lecturer in civil law and property law at the University Of Belgrade Faculty Of Laws from 1991 to 2004. At this time he was a legal consultant for major foreign companies and banks. He also worked as a consultant for the World Bank. In this period he served as member of several law reform commissions and participated in drafting new laws: Foreign investment law, Law on concessions, Draft law on trade, Law on registered pledge, Law on religious freedom, Law on music and scenic activities. He lectured on judicial training programmes for commercial court judges organised by USAID. He was included in the »list of 10 highly experienced law offices« by the Serbian investment and export promotion agency and the Serbian ministry of foreign economic relations. He was on recommended lawyers list of the US, UK and German embassies in Belgrade. Also he was registered as patent & trade mark attorney with the Yugoslav federal intellectual property. He is sworn-in court translator for English language of the district court of Belgrade.
Government
He was appointed as a Minister of Foreign Economic Relations on October 19, 2004,replacing Predrag Bubalo who became Minister of Economy. While serving as minister of Foreign Economic Relations FDI into Serbia has risen from US$960 million to US$5.5 billion. In his ministerial position Parivodić reformed areas of commercial law: drafted and defended in Parliament the Foreign Trade Law, Mortgage Law, Arbitration Law, IP Enforcement Law, Church Property Restitution Law. Parivodić was awarded the Serbian Royal Order of the White Eagle, Grand Cross in February 2007. Parivodic headed the Serbian WTO accession process from 2005-2007. He negotiated and signed the EU – Serbia Textile agreement, the first agreement between Serbia and EU. Also, he led negotiations and signed the Central European Free Trade Agreement in 2006 for Serbia. Presided the Government’s inter-ministerial Committee for improving business climate in Serbia. Serbia was then ranked no.1 in the speed of reforms by the World Bank’s Doing Business Report covering 158 countries and in the EBRD Annual Report covering 27 countries. Co-presided the Serbian - Bavarian Council from 2005-2007. He was a member of the Democratic Party of Serbia until 2008.
Lawyer
After leaving government in May 2007 Parivodić became a partner in the Austrian law firm Wolf Theiss, managing their Belgrade office. In this period also worked on some of the largest transactions as lead legal and business advisor, usually on the side of foreign investors. Today he is practicing law at his Law firm Parivodic. He is also the owner and chairman of ForInvest, a company providing strategic support to major foreign investment projects involving multinational and other large companies. Parivodić typically advises and acts for large investments in Serbia as strategic advisor and lawyer.
Milan Parivodic published "Exclusive Distribution in the Laws of Yugoslavia and the European Community" in 1996 and for his Ph.D. thesis he published "Law of International Franchising" in 2003. He also has numerous Publications in International and Serbian Law Journals in the fields of International Trade Law, Contract Law, Intellectual Property, Competition Law, and Distribution Law.
