Baltic Disputes Market Overview 2025 continues our effort to highlight the most important developments shaping dispute resolution in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The report highlights the key litigation and regulatory trends emerging across the region and shows how changes in one country are increasingly reflected in the others. Our aim is to offer clear and practical insights that helps businesses and legal professionals understand potential risks and navigate an evolving disputes landscape.
Disputes Shaped by Compliance and Decision-Making Quality
Across several areas covered in this report, courts and authorities placed particular emphasis on substantiation and well-reasoned decision-making. This includes the quality of documentation, consistency of reasoning and the evidentiary standards applied in both review and enforcement proceedings. The report also notes that, in some categories, most visibly in construction-related disputes, parties continued to favour negotiated or court-mediated settlements as a pragmatic way to avoid lengthy litigation.
Within this broader picture, the report highlights a spread of activity across the core areas of the disputes market. Employment cases continued to revolve around termination and workplace-conduct themes, with clear reminders on the practical importance of consistent internal processes and well-kept records. Construction and planning disputes remained active both in private relationships (contract performance, defects and delay-related issues) and in public-facing development questions, including municipal decisions on planning and permitting. Digital and IP-related disputes stayed in focus. In Estonia, data protection enforcement stood out due to a record fine and a growing number of breach notifications. Competition cases increasingly focused on whether administrative authorities had provided sufficiently strong reasoning and whether their decisions could withstand judicial review. Public law matters continued to evolve as procurement activity shifted alongside sustainability and methodology questions. Tax disputes reflected courts’ insistence on formal criteria, evidence and proportionality. Finally, financially sensitive disputes remained under pressure. In Lithuania, restructuring activity increased significantly alongside ongoing bankruptcies, while corporate disputes continued to be influenced by tensions between shareholders and management.
About the Report
This overview is based on COBALT’s experience, as well as publicly available information and noteworthy disputes handled by other law firms. The aim is to offer a grounded snapshot of where the disputes landscape is heading.
We hope this report serves as a useful resource for businesses, legal practitioners and policymakers navigating disputes in the Baltic region. We gladly welcome feedback and discussion on the developments highlighted in the pages that follow.
On behalf of COBALT’s Dispute Resolution Practice Group, we sincerely thank our colleagues for their expertise and contribution to this edition. We also thank our clients and partners for their trust and collaboration. We remain committed to supporting them with pragmatic, strategic advice in an increasingly complex disputes environment.
