Category: Poland

K&L Gates has successfully represented Chinese construction company China Overseas Engineering Group Co., Ltd in a dispute with a subcontractor involving its commitment to supply acoustic screens for the A2 motorway between Warsaw and Lodz, Poland.

According to K&L Gates, in 2009, a consortium headed by China Overseas won a tender for the construction of two sections of the A2 motorway between Lodz and Warsaw with a total length of approximately 50 kilometers. In mid-2011, the company withdrew from the agreement. Soon after, Poland’s General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways followed suit. Since then, China Overseas has been involved in numerous disputes related to the project. 

According to K&L Gates, this case, which has been pending before the District Court in Poznan for three years, concerns the subcontractor’s claim for almost PLN 90 million (plus interest from September 2014, increasing the claim to almost PLN 119 million). 

On January 28, 2019, the District Court in Poznan dismissed the action against China Overseas Engineering Group. The subcontractor still has the right to appeal against the judgment.

This is not the first case in which K&L Gates represented Chinas Overseas. In 2017, K&L Gates advised the company on the negotiation, conclusion, and implementation of a settlement with the State Treasury – General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways, ending a dispute which had been pending since 2011 as reported by CEE Legal Matters on July 11, 2017.

The K&L Gates team consisted of Senior Associates Dawid Rapkiewicz and Joanna Gasowski and Associates Michal Szumbarski and Lukasz Gembis.

Dentons has advised Hines Poland on the sale of the Graffit office building in Warsaw to Zeus Capital Management. DLA Piper advised the buyer on the deal.

The Graffit building, which opened for business in the first quarter of 2018, offers a total rentable area of 18,500 square meters. The building is certified as BREEAM Excellent.

Zeus Capital Management is an international investment management company that specializes in real estate investments. The company is currently active in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

Zeus Capital Management Chief Investment Officer Lila Pateraki commented that “the acquisition of Graffit office building is our first transaction in the Warsaw market and perfectly fits into the investment strategy of our platform. Thanks to the ideal location, the building will be able to benefit from the booming real estate market. We are convinced that the purchase is extremely beneficial to our investors.”

The Dentons team consisted of Partner Pawel Debowski, Counsel Maciej Jodkowski and Associate Katarzyna Lawinnska.

DLA Piper’s team consisted of Co-Managing Partner conducted Jacek Gizinski, Partner Mariusz Hyla, Counsel Michal Pietuszko, Senior Associate Piotr Niczko, and Associate Jakub Zienkiewicz.

SSW Pragmatic Solutions has appointed Katarzyna Solarz and Marcin Cetnarowicz to the firm’s partnership.

Katarzyna Solarz has been with SSW for more than six years. She specializes in legal advisory in the area of corporate law, investment funds, mergers, and take-overs. As a partner, she heads the corporate law team at SSW.

Before joining SWW, Solarz worked at Domanski Zakrzewski Palinka law firm. She studied at the University of Warsaw, Poland, and received legal traineeship at the Chamber of Legal Advisors in Warsaw.

Marcin Cetnarowicz joined SSW in 2011. He heads the Labor Law practice at SWW. According to SSW, “Cetnarowicz provides counseling to clients in the area of individual and collective labor law, optimal employment forms, as well as costs and contracts. He develops and implements company labour law regulations.”

Before joining SSW he worked at Majchrzak Brandt i Wspolnicy for over six years. He studied law at the the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland.

K&L Gates lawyers have advised Poland’s Alfabeat venture capital fund in Poland on its investment in RoboCamp.

According to K&L Gates, “RoboCamp creates online school textbooks based on the latest educational techniques, which enable teachers without specialist preparation to conduct classes in robotics and programming. They are addressed mainly to primary and secondary schools, but RoboCamp’s services are also used by museums, libraries and teaching companies. RoboCamp courses are taken by about 50,000 students per year.”

The K&L Gates team was led by Of Counsel Michal Petz and Senior Associate Artur Kloc.

Peterka & Partners has established a new Aviation Practice Group, led by Warsaw-based Senior Associate Adrianna Szczecinska, and a new Polish Desk, led by Associate Marcin Kryszko.

According to Peterka & Partners, the firm’s clients “include national, low-cost and charter airlines, international airport operators, aircraft equipment producers, and airfield technology companies, [and] with the new Aviation sector group, the firm will be able to handle all aspects of the aviation industry and offer comprehensive legal advisory for entities from this field throughout the entire CEE region.”

The Peterka & Partners Polish Language Desk was launched, the firm reports, “to provide legal services to international companies doing business in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. The desk’s lawyers also help Polish companies with entering new markets and conducting business operations in CEE.” According to the firm, Kryszko “shares his time between the Moscow and Warsaw offices of the firm coordinating legal advisory services for Polish clients operating in Russia and the CEE region. He also helps Russian clients with their business operations in Poland.”

Dentons has advised Orbis in connection with a tender offer issued by majority shareholder AccorHotels to purchase all outstanding shares in Orbis’s share capital.

According to Dentons, “the transaction is one of the largest tender offers launched in 2018 for shares of a company listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.”

In accordance with the preliminary results of the offer, investors submitted subscriptions for shares constituting approximately 33.1 percent of the share capital of Orbis for a total consideration of EUR 337 million.

According to Dentons, the Orbis Group was the first hotel sector company to make a public debut on the WSE in 1997. Currently, Orbis is the largest hotel chain in Poland and the CEE region.

Dentons’ transaction team was led by Dentons Warsaw Partner Jakub Celinski, supported by Associate Mikolaj Chodkiewicz.

Editor’s Note: After this article was published CEE Legal Matters learned that Weil, Gotshal & Manges advised AccorHotels in connection with the acquisition from the minority shareholders, through a public tender offer, of shares in Orbis.

The Weil team was led by Partner Marcin Chylinski, supported by Counsel Ewa Bober and attorneys Filip Lesniak, Leszek Cyganiewicz, and Arkadiusz Karwala.

Kochanski Zieba & Partners has split into two firms, with Rafal Zieba, Adam Piwakowski, and Maciej Schmidt leaving KZP’s equity to form Zieba & Partners, leaving Piotr Kochanski and Rafal Rapala as equity partners of the renamed Kochanski & Partners.

According to Zieba & Partners, as part of the agreement among all the former KZP equity partners, Zieba & Partners retains KZP’s Krakow office, and it has established a new office in Warsaw. Zieba & Partners currently has 12 partners, 9 of which were partners at KZP.

More information to follow soon.

Wolf Theiss has advised ALSO Holding AG on its agreement with MCI Euroventures, the majority shareholder of ABC Data S.A., to make a joint tender offer for all publicly-held shares of Warsaw Stock Exchange-listed ABC Data. Baker McKenzie advised MCI and ABC Data on the sale. 

Following the completion of the offer and the approval of the regulatory authorities, ALSO Holding will take over the entire business operations of ABC Data, a distributor of IT hardware and consumer electronics in Poland that operates in a number of Central and Eastern Europe countries.

According to ALSO Holding, a provider of information and communication technologies, solutions, and services in Europe, the transaction will enable the company to develop the solution and service business in line with its strategy.

The Wolf Theiss team in Warsaw was led by Co-Managing Partner Peter Daszkowski and Counsel Dariusz Harbaty and included Partner Karolina Stawowska, Senior Associates Agnieszka Nowak-Blaszczak and Joanna Wajdzik, and Associates Anna Nowodworska, Monika Gaczkowska, and Damian Majda. 

The Austrian team consisted of Partner Gunter Bauer and Counsel Jochen Anweiler. The team in Slovakia involved Counsel Katarina Bielikova and Associates Jozef Vircik and Dalibor Palaticky. The team also included Hungarian Partner Janos Toth and Associates Mark Chiovini, Peter Ihasz, and Zoltan Bodog, Romanian Partner Ileana Glodenau, Senior Associate Mircea Ciocirlea, and Associate Andreea Stan, and Czech Partner Jitka Logesova in the Czech Republic. 

The Polish Baker McKenzie team consisted of Partner Tomasz Krzyzowski, Counsel Jacek Balicki, Senior Associate Ernest Dymel, and Junior Associate Chrystian Poszwinski.

Editor’s Note: On July 4, 2019, Sorainen announced that it had worked alongside Wolf Theiss in advising ALSO Holding on its takeover of ABC Data’s business operations. The firm’s team advising on Lithuanian elements of the deal consisted of Partner Mantas Petkevicius, Senior Associate Deimante Pagiriene, and Associate Jurgita Tekoriene.

Subsequently, on July 5, 2019, Wolf Theiss reported that the transaction had completed on July 1, 2019, after the successful June 25, 2019 completion of the tender offer. 

Gessel has advised Bank BGZ BNP Paribas on its acquisition of a minority stake in Dafo Plastics, a packaging producer from the south Poland town of Nowy Targ. Kasprzyk & Wojdan advised Dafo Plastics on the deal. 

Dafo Plastics, founded 27 years ago, manufactures plastic bottles, jars, tubes, and a variety of caps and lids for customers including in cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.

Gessel’s team was led by Partner Malgorzata Badowska, supported by Managing Associate Michal Boryczka, Senior Associate Krzysztof Jasinski, and Associate Mateusz Bak.

The Kasprzyk & Wojdan team was led by Lukasz Kasprzyk, supported by Associate Kinga Michalska. 

Slawomir Kowalski has been promoted to Partner at Maruta Wachta in Poland.

Kowalski joined Maruta Wachta in 2015 as a Senior Associate. Before that he was an Advocate with PwC Legal, and earlier still he worked as a Trainee Advocate with LDS Lazewski Depo i Wspolnicy and with CMS.

According to a firm-issued press release, Kowalski’s promotion “is an expression of appreciation for his contribution to the development of personal data protection practice at Maruta Wachta. It also confirms the importance of personal data protection and compliance, in its broadest sense, as a part of the firm’s specialization of new technologies law.”  As a result of his promotion, Maruta Wachta reports that its Personal Data Protection Practice includes 27 experts, including two Partners, two Counsels, and eight Senior Associates.

Senior Partner Martin Maruta expressed his confidence in Kowalski’s capabilities on the occasion of his promotion: “I wish all the managing partners of other law firms [could] receive as positive opinions on members of their teams as the customers and the market express … towards Slawomir Kowalski. It is a great pleasure to work with someone like Slawomir. I do cordially congratulate him [on] his well-deserved promotion and I keep my fingers crossed for further successes.”