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.

It is a good time for the CEE region, and for Poland. In September 2018 Poland became the first country in CEE to be ranked as a “developed market” in the FTSE Russell index. And the Polish Life Sciences market, which had previously been driven by a transition economy dogma, has made a leap from a purely generic market to a more innovative one. A few recent developments may allow Poland to become a leader in the CEE Life Sciences industry.

Artur Chrzanowski is the Head of Legal of EIFFAGE Polska. Prior to joining EIFFAGE in 2016, he was a Senior Associate with Magnusson in Warsaw for one year. Earlier still, he was Head of Legal at Metro Properties, Legal Section Manager of the A1 Motorway Project at Skanska, an attorney-at-law with the Kronospan Group, and a lawyer with Kompania Piwowarska. In the process, he has served in managerial roles as a compliance officer and as a member of various company management and supervisory boards.

Dentons’ creates a pilot mindfulness program to address law firm stress.

Simplifications for Taxpayers in Exchange for Effective Tools for Examining and Estimating Income in Intra-Group Transactions

The legal environment in Poland has changed substantially over the last three years as a result of changes instituted by the conservative Law and Justice government. How can investors navigate their way through increasing regulatory pressures?

In 2013 the SNR Denton, Fraser Milner Casgrain, and Salans law firms merged into one entity: Dentons. The firm capitalized on its momentum by merging two years later with China’s Dacheng law firm, making it the largest law firm in the world. On the occasion of the firm’s 5th anniversary, CEE Legal Matters reached out to Dentons Partner and Europe Chief Executive Officer Tomasz Dabrowski in Poland and Dentons Partner and Global Vice Chair Evan Lazar in Prague to ask about the first five years and to see what’s next in Denton’s strategy for Europe and CEE.

The Polish Competition Authority has been increasingly active as the market watchdog. In assuming his position as President of the Competition Authority in 2016, Marek Niechcial announced his commitment to strengthening competition law enforcement via a stricter approach, more investigations, and higher fines for wrongdoers. The last two years demonstrate that the Authority is working towards delivering on this promise.

Significant changes have been made to Polish transfer pricing regulations in recent years. New legislation, adopted in 2017, introduced a three-tiered approach to transfer pricing documentation consisting of: (1) local file, (2) master file, and (3) country-by-country reporting. Poland was one of the first countries to introduce the changes recommended by the OECD in BEPS (Action 13).

Andrew Kozlowski is Counsel (and former Managing Partner) at CMS in Warsaw, where he specializes in energy and project finance, corporate/M&A, privatizations, and international capital markets. He has been involved in numerous infrastructure projects in Poland and across CEE and various project finance transactions in the energy and transportation sectors, from motorways, railways, and waste, to energy utilities.

The commercial real estate market in Poland continues to be on a growth path. In 2017, the market recorded high demand in all major asset classes, breaking records in the hotel and warehouse sectors. The total value of transactions is growing consistently, and in 2017 it reached EUR 5.1 billion – the highest level in the history of the Polish market.

I love my profession. It has given me the privilege of being a witness to and an active participant in the significant changes which have unfolded in Poland over the last 30 years. I graduated in 1985 when the Polish economy was socialist. Nothing at that time could lead one to realistically expect that the socialist regime would fall in a few years, with Poland becoming a free country. When I went to study in Oxford in 1988, I left a socialist Poland, only to return to a Poland already on its path to a free market economy.