AUSTRIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Oliver Völkel, Jara Erhard and Bryan Hollmann, CERHA HEMPEL
CERHA HEMPEL is one of Austria’s leading corpo- rate law firms, with an integrated Central and Eastern European practice. With a team of over 200 lawyers, CERHA HEMPEL offers clients expertise and experi- ence in all areas of corporate and commercial law. Over the past 20 years, the firm has played a lead- ing role in all significant transactions in Austria. The firm’s expertise – combined with years of experience in Central and Eastern Europe and the Lex Mundi network – ensures that clients receive high-quality,
intellectually rigorous advice, across disciplines and across borders. CERHA HEMPEL is renowned for its expertise in capital markets law, covering all aspects of IPOs, capital increases and bond issuances, ad- vising potential issuers and underwriters on due dili- gence issues, as well as preparing prospectuses in accordance with international standards. In 2025, Ol- iver Völkel and team joined the banking and finance team, bringing valuable expertise in blockchain, crypto-assets, and financial regulation.
Authors
Oliver Völkel is a partner at CERHA HEMPEL. His areas of specialisation include banking and capital markets law as well as crypto-asset regulation. Oliver is considered a pioneer in this area of law. He is the editor of several
Bryan Hollmann is a senior associate in CERHA HEMPEL’s banking and finance team. He specialises in financial regulation, with a particular focus on crypto-assets, digital finance and cross-border regulatory matters.
relevant specialist works (Blockchain rules (MANZ), Crypto-Assets (BECK)), publishes regularly and lectures at Austrian universities. His clients include well-known layer-1 protocols, DeFi applications as well as operators of mining and validator pools. Oliver also advises international companies in the crypto industry as well as financial service providers in the securities sector and banks.
As a lawyer admitted in New York, Bryan frequently advises on matters at the intersection of EU and US legal and regulatory frameworks. He also advises on early-stage financing transactions, anti-money laundering matters and general corporate law.
Jara Erhard is an associate in CERHA HEMPEL’s banking & finance and crypto & fintech team, working with Oliver Völkel. She specialises in crypto regulation, focusing on licensing procedures and regulatory
compliance under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), the E-Money Directive (EMD) and the Payment Service Directive (PSD2). Jara regularly advises clients on licence applications for crypto- asset service providers, e-money issuers and institutes as well as payment institutes before the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA), providing guidance on the regulatory classification and treatment of crypto-assets.
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