Panayotis Yannakas

Panayotis Yannakas brings a business background to his litigation practice in Cyprus. Before his call to the Cyprus Bar in 2020, he co-founded and served as General Director of a boutique digital marketing firm, where he managed international transactions, cross-border VAT questions, and software development. That commercial grounding, together with his published work on “Open Texture of International Tax Law” and “Restricting the Autonomy of Digital Creators: Contemporary Issues of Possible Market Distortion by App Stores” in the ENTHA Law Journal, informs how he reads the connection between business operations and legal compliance.

Since founding his own office in Nicosia in 2023, he has built a litigation practice spanning criminal defence, employment law, tort claims, family law, and administrative disputes. He introduces himself deliberately as a General Lawyer and Litigation Lawyer rather than as a narrow specialist; his article Why the Generalist Lawyer Is the Better Bet sets out the reasoning, and his full range of services is listed separately.

Experience

Called to the Cyprus Bar in 2020, Mr. Yannakas has practiced as a litigation lawyer for six years, managing court cases, drafting pleadings and contracts, and advising on contentious matters with financial, regulatory, and technological components. His practice has involved representation in criminal courts, labour tribunals, civil courts, and administrative proceedings.

In 2023 he founded the Law Office of Panayotis Yannakas in Nicosia. Through this office he handles disputes ranging from criminal defence to employment and tort claims, judicial review, and other administrative law challenges, including matters requiring the interpretation of EU directives and international public law doctrines such as the Acta Jure Imperii principle in disputes involving foreign embassies.

Beyond his courtroom work, Mr. Yannakas has served as a legal researcher for the Central Bank of Cyprus, contributing analytical work on regulatory and compliance questions that inform litigation positions. He also acts as a GDPR case reporter for noyb, tracking data protection case law that feeds into his litigation strategy in privacy and technology-related cases.

His experience extends to corporate-related litigation, including disputes arising from corporate restructuring, transfer of undertakings under EU Directive 2001/23/EC, and intellectual property conflicts. He has revived abandoned trademark applications and defended against enforcement tactics by so-called patent trolls before European fora.

Specialty

Panayotis Yannakas is a licensed litigation lawyer based in Nicosia, advising individuals, companies, and non-profit organisations, with a practice centred on contentious proceedings across several areas of Cyprus law and a consistent focus on how disputes interact with international, EU, and digital-economy frameworks.

His criminal litigation work includes defence in serious cases, notably proceedings involving allegations of terrorism, where he uses digital forensic techniques, including cache file analysis, to challenge the validity, admissibility, and interpretation of electronic evidence.

In employment litigation, he represents clients in disputes arising from employment transfers, restructurings, and terminations, particularly those governed by EU Directive 2001/23/EC on the safeguarding of employees’ rights in the event of transfers of undertakings. His approach balances statutory and contractual rights with the practical realities of business continuity and workforce management.

His civil litigation practice covers tort claims and commercial disputes, including corporate restructuring, contractual liability, and professional negligence, where his business and technical background helps him unpack complex transactional structures and present their legal implications clearly to the courts.

His civil practice also extends to family law, where he represents clients in consensual and contested divorce, custody and parental responsibility disputes, and matrimonial property division. The family law practice page sets out this work in more detail.

In administrative and public law litigation, Mr. Yannakas acts in disputes involving public authorities and foreign missions, such as cases where the Acta Jure Imperii principle, immunity for sovereign acts of states, is at issue. His familiarity with public international law allows him to navigate questions of jurisdiction, state immunity, and the interaction between domestic courts and foreign state entities.

He also handles litigation connected to corporate and regulatory compliance, including beneficial ownership reporting for a portfolio of over 30 entities, AML compliance, and the establishment and operation of entities such as an NGO in Cyprus’ buffer zone. Beyond the contentious side, he also advises directly on Cyprus company formation and post-incorporation compliance.

His litigation practice additionally covers intellectual property and technology-related disputes, particularly those involving trademarks, digital platforms, and market-distortion concerns. His academic work on international tax law and app-store market dynamics informs his strategy in disputes where taxation, competition, and digital-platform regulation intersect with the rights being litigated.

Education

Panayotis Yannakas initially studied Business Administration before completing his legal education at the European University Cyprus Law School, where his research culminated in his ENTHA Law Journal publications and an LLB thesis on Informal Value Transfer Systems. He writes about that transition, from digital marketing into law, and about starting his own office, in My Journey: Transitioning from Digital Marketing to Law, and why I started my own Law Office.

Awards & Industry Rankings

• Made the Dean’s List three times at European University Cyprus Law School, receiving First, Second, and Third Honors for academic excellence during the Spring 2017, Fall 2017, and Spring 2018 semesters. 
• Professional Certificate, Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Greece, based on ACCA Standards, Law and Accounting (2014–2015, Grade: 83/100).
• Named a GOLD lawyer by Global Law Experts for the practice area of Litigation.
• Recurring contributor to OneTrust’s DataGuidance compliance platform, providing annual analysis of Cyprus data breach notification law since 2024

Notable Court Cases

• Protecting Fundamental Human Rights in a Civil Lawsuit (District Court): My client, a European citizen who had come to Cyprus to work as a barwoman, was instead forced into prostitution by the bar owner, who took her passport and held it against her will. After the criminal case against the owner concluded successfully, she hired me to pursue damages for the trauma and harm she had suffered, a tort claim that let us assert fundamental human rights within district court proceedings.
• Defence of an Immigrant Falsely Accused of Smuggling and Human Trafficking (Criminal Court): My client had travelled to Cyprus by boat with 25 other people when a ship approached them and the smugglers on board abandoned everyone at sea. He took control of the boat to bring it to shore, and on arrival the police arrested him, accusing him of being the smuggler and human trafficker.
• Termination of a Foreign Embassy Employee and the Acta Jure Imperii Exemption (Labour Court): A foreign national employed at their home country’s embassy in Cyprus was dismissed after a conflict with more senior colleagues. The challenge was to show that the conflict fell outside the Acta Jure Imperii principle, which governs the diplomatic immunity of foreign officials, made harder by the fact that part of the damages claimed were grounded in tort law for bullying based on sexual orientation.
• Balancing a Successful Surgery Against Aesthetic Concerns (District Court): A surgeon successfully removed a malignant tumour from the plaintiff, who then sued for medical negligence, citing dissatisfaction with the aesthetic outcome, restricted movement in the affected area, and visible scarring. The case turned on whether the surgeon had met the required standard of care, weighed against conflicting medical opinion on the best treatment approach and the underlying success of removing the tumour.
• Amendments to the Bill of Indictment and the Legality of Cache Files (Criminal Court): My client, a Syrian national who had fled the war in his country, faced criminal charges after the FBI informed local police that he had participated in a Telegram group promoting ISIS. As his defence lawyer, I amended the bill of indictment to more accurately reflect the charges, and argued in a hearing within a hearing that he could not have known about the cache files found on his device that the prosecution relied on as evidence.
• Procurement Process of the EAC and Lot Theory (Administrative Court): The appeal concerned the application of “lot theory” in a €1.1 million EAC tender, even though the original call for tenders never used that term. The pleadings had to establish that the competition was in substance a lot-based tender and that the EAC’s process fell short of EU procurement requirements and related soft law.