According to its website, Budapest-based InvestCEE aims to “humanize technology” for lawyers and provides services to law firms and in-house counsel in Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

As Europe begins a tentative re-opening following several difficult months of quarantining, social distancing, and working-from-home, we spoke to CMS’s Warsaw-based Employment Partner Katarzyna Dulewicz and Vienna-based Dispute Resolution Partner Daniela Karollus-Bruner for their perspective on the process.

There is a question circulating on the Internet right now: Who led the digital transformation of your company? Possible answers are: a) CEO; b) CTO; c) COVID-19. Which answer is correct?

All European countries are now facing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and each state is undertaking different measures to limit the spread of the virus. Recently, the Polish government has extended the so-called “export ban list” – a list of, in particular, medicinal products and medical devices the export or sale of which abroad may be subject to the objection of the Chief Pharmaceutical Inspector. This list grew by over a thousand items in the past month and has changed from a list of products subject to parallel export due to price differences to a list of products that we want to keep in Poland. Also, the President of the Office for Registration has asked pharmaceutical companies to consider launching clinical trials in these unique circumstances.

According to CEE Legal Matters’ 2019 By the Numbers report, the gender balance at commercial law firms in Poland up to the senior associate level is fairly even, with 44.58% being women. However, at the partner level things change drastically, with women representing fewer than 25%. Even then, other reports suggest, many of the women lawyers who do make partner do so not at the larger, high-profile law firms, but at smaller boutiques. The “Women in Law” foundation in Poland was created to address this imbalance, and other forms of gender inequality in the legal industry, with a special focus on legal tech.

Climate change-related risks have climbed to the top of the agenda of various stakeholders across the globe: governments, international organizations, NGOs, businesses, and ordinary citizens. The Global Risk Report 2020, presented this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, demonstrates that climate-related risks – including extreme weather, climate action failure, natural disasters, biodiversity loss, and human-made environmental disasters – are among the top five long-term risks over the next ten years. Most notably, according to survey respondents, the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation is this year’s number one long-term risk by impact. The report underscores that, in the 2020s, “concerted action is required not only to reduce emissions but also to develop credible adaptation strategies, including climate-proofing infrastructure, closing the insurance protection gap, and scaling up public and private adaptation finance.”

Contributed by Rymarz Zdort.

Contributed by Penteris

The Deal: In July, CEE Legal Matters reported that Norton Rose Fulbright had advised Grupa Lotos SA on the USD 500 million refinancing of loan facilities contracted by the company in connection with its “Program 10+” financing. Clifford Chance advised a consortium of domestic and international banks including Bank Polska Kasa Opieki S.A., Caixabank S.A., Erste Group Bank AG, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Europe) S.A., ING Bank Slaski S.A., Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A, Powszechna Kasa Oszczednosci Bank Polski S.A., and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Bank EU AG on the deal, with Credit Agricole, CIB, and BNP Paribas SA serving as agents.

Polish lawyer Anna Wawrzynczak spent 14 years in private practice with two highly-regarded international law firms before moving in-house with the Coast2Coast investment fund, where she was Regional Counsel CEE for almost three years. In October 2019 she accepted an offer to become the Legal Manager, Head of the Corporate Division at the Polish Development Fund in Warsaw. 

Poland, which still produces 80% of power and 75% of district heating by coal-fired generation, is about to face an unavoidable and profound transformation of its energy market. The Best Available Techniques (BAT) conclusions for large combustion plants that will enter into force in 2021, the derogation mechanism that will end in 2023, and the medium combustion plant emission limits that will become effective in 2026 all require that enormous and economically questionable investments be made in new filters for coal generation units.

The key Polish legal act governing dispute resolution, the Civil Procedure Code of 1964, underwent major reform this year, again. The amended version, with almost 300 changes, including many revolutionary ones, became effective on November 7, 2019.

On January 1, 2016, Poland revamped its legal framework related to the restructuring of financially distressed businesses with a brand-new Restructuring Law and significantly-amended Bankruptcy Law. The Polish restructuring (and broadly speaking insolvency) framework is now governed by two separate legal acts: the Restructuring Law, which deals with the financial restructuring of indebted companies and businesses, and the Bankruptcy Law, which focuses on the orderly liquidation of the assets of companies and businesses without feasible options to restructure their debts and continue their operations.

Law Firm Marketing experts from across the region answer the question: “What is your experience of working with an external public relations firm?“

With GDP growth for 2019 projected to be approximately 4%, the Polish economy remains strong, and the country’s real estate sector continues to set new records. The low availability of housing, strong domestic consumption, and stable industry production have boosted the profitability of real estate investments. Demand for land is high and developers compete fiercely for the shrinking number of attractive spots. In August 2019, a new law came into force which may make real properties held in a right of perpetual usufruct (RPU) more attractive than they used to be.

Why would anyone knowingly become a law firm marketing specialist – a role that is demanding, complicated, challenging, and stressful? To explore this mystery, we went to the source. Accordingly, this time around we asked the law firm marketing specialists of CEE to complete the following question: “I went into Law Firm Marketing/BD as a career because ____________.“

5G technology is the next stage in the development of wireless telecommunications networks. Thanks to much quicker data transmission speeds and fewer delays, this technology will make it possible to offer new quality services both for public uses such as smart energy grids, transport systems, and smart cities, and for private uses such as autonomous and automated vehicles and smart homes. Also, given the greater number of devices operated by one network unit, 5G will provide for better configuration options, making it possible to offer different services to a large number of users within one infrastructure. This distinguishes 5G technology from the technologies available today, where the activity of one user has an impact on other users and reduces data transmission speed.

It has been over a year since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation became mandatory across Europe, marking a seismic shift in the way that companies collect, process, and handle personal data. Countries across the European Union and beyond have adapted their national laws to meet the requirements of the GDPR – with many introducing local derogations as permitted by the GDPR.