Category: Poland

  • Wolf Theiss Announces Partnership with Women’s Entrepreneurship Foundation in Poland

    Wolf Theiss Announces Partnership with Women’s Entrepreneurship Foundation in Poland

    Wolf Theiss has announced a partnership with the Women’s Entrepreneurship Foundation (Fundacja Przedsiebiorczosci Kobiet) in Poland, as part of what the firm describes as its “long-term commitment to supporting professional development and social capital among women.”

    The newly-announced collaboration was launched on June 21 with a networking event in the firm’s Warsaw office that drew over 200 participants. The topic of the event was joint investments by women. The speakers included Kinga Nowakowska, CEO of Black Swan Fund, which invests in start-ups founded by women; Katarzyna Pawlikowska, Mentor of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Foundation and co-author of the research report “Polki”/”Polish Women”; and Malgorzata Bonikowska, President of THINKTANK, a Polish research and social organization.

    “Our firm has long been engaged in initiatives that support women’s professional development, so the Women’s Entrepreneurship Foundation was a natural choice of a partner as we continue to pursue our goals in this area,” said Marta Albrecht-Niedzialek, Operations and Marketing Communications Manager at the Warsaw office of Wolf Theiss. “We are very pleased that our kick-off event drew such incredible interest and was such an overwhelming success”.

    “We are very pleased by this new relationship with Wolf Theiss, which is already bearing fruit,” said Katarzyna Wierzbowska from the Women’s Entrepreneurship Foundation. “Events like this help women develop the confidence necessary for establishing and running successful businesses.”

    According to Wolf Theiss, “for the past four years, the Women’s Entrepreneurship Foundation has been running programs helping women establish their own businesses, gain external financing and enter new markets. The Foundation has initiated and supported a thriving business networking community (the Entrepreneurial Women Network), runs its own acceleration program (‘Business in Women’s Hands’), and supports the activities of women business angels.”

  • CMS and Dentons Advise on Purchase of Three Fashion House Outlet Shopping Centers in Poland

    CMS and Dentons Advise on Purchase of Three Fashion House Outlet Shopping Centers in Poland

    CMS has advised Deutsche Asset Management on the purchase of a portfolio of Fashion House Outlets located in the Polish cities of Piaseczno, Gdansk, and Sosnowiec from Peakside Capital. Dentons advised Peakside Capital on the deal.

    “The commercial real estate market in Poland is currently receiving considerable interest from investors,” said Wojciech Koczara, Managing Partner of CMS’s real estate practice for Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. “Due to the expected increase in consumer spending, this trend is likely to continue in the coming years. Increasing retail sales and changes in the structure of consumer spending mean that there are new opportunities for the development of commercial projects in Poland.” 

    The CMS team included Partner Wojciech Koczara, Associate Piotr Przybylski, Lawyer Kamil Osowski, and Senior Associate Michal Derdak, as well as lawyers from SKJ Szybkowski Kuzma Jelen Sp.j., which cooperated with CMS on the transaction.

    The Warsaw-based Dentons team advising Peakside Capital included Partners Pawel Debowski and Maciej Ryniewicz.

  • Orrick, DZP, and Baker McKenzie Advise on Successful Bid for Polish Fiber Optic Broadband Network

    Orrick, DZP, and Baker McKenzie Advise on Successful Bid for Polish Fiber Optic Broadband Network

    Orrick has advised Infracapital, the infrastructure investment arm of M&G Investments, in its joint venture with Nokia, to build, own, and operate a fiber optic broadband network across Poland. DZP advised Infracapital on Polish law matters, while Baker McKenzie advised the joint venture and Nokia.

    The joint venture has been appointed by the Polish government as its preferred bidder to build, own, and operate a large fibre broadband network in 13 regions in Central and Northern Poland. Construction is expected to begin this year with capital expenditure estimated at EUR 300 million. 

    The project is part of the EU-backed “Digital Poland” program which aims to deploy high-speed fiber optic broadband across the country by 2020. 

    Infracapital is the European infrastructure equity arm of M&G Limited, Prudential Plc’s European investment management division. 

    The Orrick team advising Infracapital was led by Corporate Partner Jinal Shah and Energy & Infrastructure Partner John Deacon and included Henry Storrar, Matthew Stott, Alex Sobolev, Douglas Lahnborg and Matthew Rose. 

    The DZP team consisted of Partners Bartosz Marcinkowski and Tomasz Darowski, Senior Associates Maciej Ciszkiewicz and Jerzy Sawicki, and Associate Agata Izyk.

    The Baker McKenzie team was led by Partner Tomasz Krzyzowski and Associate Marta Fredrych.

  • Krukowska to Head GEO Renewables Legal Team in Warsaw

    Krukowska to Head GEO Renewables Legal Team in Warsaw

    Edyta Krukowska has been appointed Head of the Legal Department at GEO Renewables S.A., a company which develops, constructs, and operates wind parks in Poland.

    A graduate of the University of Warsaw, Krukoswka first joined GEO Renewables in 2016 as a Manager of the Legal Department. Before that, she worked as a Senior Associate with K&L Gates, and before that with Hogan & Hartson.

  • KKLW Advises Turkish-Polish Consortium on Successful Bid to Construct Warsaw Bypass Road

    KKLW Advises Turkish-Polish Consortium on Successful Bid to Construct Warsaw Bypass Road

    KKLW has advised a consortium of Turkish construction firm Gulermak and Poland’s Przedsiebiorstwo Budowy Drog i Mostow on its selection via tender to construct Part B of the Warsaw bypass road — a 6.45 km long section to include a new bridge on the Vistula river. The value of the contract is EUR 178.1 million.

    On June 21st, Polish Minister of Construction and Infrastructure Andrzej Adamczyk officially opened the construction site.

    KKLW Partner Jacek Kosinski advised the consortium throughout the public procurement process and represented the companies in proceedings before Poland’s Public Procurement Office. According to KKLW, “the result of the public tender was questioned by other participants but all PPO rulings were in favor of the consortium represented by KKLW.”

  • Deloitte Legal Adds Pair of Partners in Warsaw

    Deloitte Legal Adds Pair of Partners in Warsaw

    Polish lawyers Piotr Siezieniewski and Przemyslaw Stobinski have joined Deloitte Legal in Warsaw — Siezieniewski as a Partner and Stobinski as a Partner Associate.

    Siezieniewski has spent his entire career at Baker & McKenzie, which he joined as an Associate in 2007 shortly after graduating from the University of Warsaw. According to Deloitte Legal, “he focuses on M&A advisory services, in particular on private-equity funded deals. He provides advisory assistance at all stages of a M&A process, starting from due diligence analysis, negotiation of transaction documents, preparation, managing and closing a deal. In recent years, Piotr focused on start-ups and supported both parties to transactions in promising seed and venture capital projects.”

    After beginning his career with four and a half years in two smaller firms in Poznan, in 2006 Stobinski also joined Baker & McKenzie. In March of 2008 he moved to CMS, where he stayed until this most recent move to Deloitte, where he will lead the firm’s Polish Labor Law practice. According to Deloitte Legal, he “has broad experience in cases regarding collective and individual labor law, social insurance and immigration, mobile labor force and cross-border secondment law.” The firm also reports that “he advised clients with regard to a variety of restructuring and consolidation processes, negotiations and collective disputes.” Finally, the firm says, he “managed implementations and transformations of internal regulations, such as collective labour agreements and other rules in companies operating in the energy, automotive, logistics and trading sectors. He was also in charge of changes in compensation policies and incentive schemes for top executives in the banking and insurance sector.”

  • Compliance Risks During an Internal Investigation and How to Avoid Them

    There are a number of not-so-obvious issues related to running an internal investigation that are often missed or simply disregarded as not important. Some of them pose risks to the success of the investigation, while others may not only jeopardize the results but also lead to potentially severe liability of the company and/or the individuals running the investigation).

    Internal vs. External Investigations

    One of the most important issues that arise in the context of internal investigations is how to deal with potential conflict between internal and external investigations. Why is this important? 

    First of all, we need to remember that the aims of internal and external investigations are different. Although theoretically both look at potential breaches of the law, the aim of external investigations is quite often directed only at finding and punishing a potential perpetrator or even an entire company for a breach of the law, while the interest of the company (or its shareholders, when the investigation is led by the owner) is much broader. This is not just a question of punishment but also of understanding the underlying grounds of the problem, as well as breaches of internal rules, the potential (non-public) liability of the officers of the company (e.g., for lack of proper supervision), and finding arguments (if any) to defend the company and its employees against claims – either of the authority or third parties. 

    Second, the other side of the story relates to the interest of the individuals involved in the interviews. One needs to remember that (contrary to the general rules for public proceedings) witnesses in internal proceedings are not obliged to tell the truth, with potential criminal liability attaching for false statements (which is usually quite a significant argument). Of course, employment sanctions (e.g., termination of the contract) for lying to one’s employer can be used, but they are obviously less severe. This makes the position of the people conducting the interview especially tricky; they need to take into account that the witness may not necessarily tell the same story in an internal interview as they would in an external one. What is particularly important is that the people being interviewed are usually interested in presenting their own actions in the best possible light, usually minimizing their role and importance to the case. This reaction, though quite natural, may lead to a false or incomplete picture. The consequences of such situations are very serious, and not just because of the potentially lost case. A company answering any questions or presenting its position towards the authorities upon such an incomplete picture may generate not just doubt as to the fairness of its cooperation with the authorities, but even suspicion that it is willfully obstructing the investigation. 

    What can investigators do? Are they completely powerless compared to officials from law enforcement authorities? Certainly not. First of all, they usually know the company much better than external authorities do. Second, because they are not necessarily seen as adversarial or posing a consequential threat, they may be able to obtain more information than law enforcement officials can. Of course, there are cases where openly stating the consequences of incomplete cooperation is both useful and necessary

    Third, what may happen with the outcome of the internal investigation? Is it going to be a potential burden when disclosed? In principle – though there are differences in antimonopoly proceedings – the outcome of internal investigations will be covered by client-attorney privilege. On the other hand, the law may impose a duty to disclose any materials/evidence relating to the case when prompted by the authorities. There are also cases where one is legally obliged by law to inform the authorities that a crime has been committed (in Poland, Art. 240 of the Criminal Code imposes this duty in relation to the most severe crimes). Even when this duty is not direct, the company needs to consider how reluctance in disclosing the details will be perceived by the authorities. Since in certain circumstances it might be treated even as an obstruction of the existing investigation, decisions in this respect must be made very carefully. One needs to remember that an internal investigation is not aimed at the protection of particular individuals and their wrongdoing but at protecting the company.

    All in all, it is necessary to build a complicated picture of the mixed interests in the investigations, requiring extra caution from the investigators and a very carefully planned approach.

    By Radoslaw Nozykowski, Head of Compliance, Baker McKenzie Poland
    This Article was originally published in Issue 4.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.
  • Comparison Makes Perfect: Turkey to Allow Comparative Advertisements in 2018

    It would not be unreasonable to suggest that most developments in commercial markets occur as a result of competition between participants and manufacturers of similar products. From an end-user’s perspective, it is always easier to recognize products and/or make comparisons between products on the basis of specific brands/trademarks. 

    However, for an ordinary customer/end-user, who often does not have the ability to try out and then pick and choose from a wide array of products, advertisements would be a primary source of information allowing them to compare (at least) the fundamental differences between the options on the table and make an educated decision. 

    In Turkey, companies are prohibited from referring in advertisements to actual brands that their own products are competing with. However, the rules about what information advertisements can legally provide in comparing products to those of competitors in the market are changing.

    Legal Developments

    On January 10, 2015, the Regulation on Commercial Advertisement and Unfair Commercial Practices entered into effect in Turkey, allowing enterprises to use their competitors’ commercial title and trademark in their own advertisement for comparative purposes. The effective date of the provisions regulating the principles of such competition was initially set for January 10, 2016, and then postponed to December 31, 2016. The basis for such postponement has not been specified.

    Further, by virtue of a regulation published on January 4, 2017, the effective date of Article 8 was again postponed, this time to January 1, 2018, and certain amendments to the principles were introduced as well. 

    Principles

    According to that January 4 regulation, the following principles will apply to comparative advertisements:

    a) Enterprises may engage in comparative advertisement provided that: 

    • such advertisements are not deceptive and misleading;
    • such advertisements do not lead to unfair competition;
    • the goods and services that are compared satisfy the same needs or serve the same purpose;
    • only issues that are relevant to the customer are made subject to comparison;
    • the advertisements objectively compare one or more characteristics, including price, of the goods and services which are tangible, essential, justifiable, and typical;
    • comparative claims are based on objective, measurable, or numeric data evidenced by scientific tests, reports, or documents;
    • such advertisements do not disparage or discredit the competitors’ intellectual and industrial rights, commercial title, business name, other distinguishing marks, goods, services, practices, or other characteristics;
    • the competitor’s goods and services are from the same geographical origin, to the extent the origin of any goods or services for which comparison is made is stated in the advertisement;
    • such advertisements do not lead to confusion between the trademark, commercial title, business name, or any other distinguishing mark, goods, or services of the owner of the advertisement and its competitor; and
    • such advertisements are not contrary to principles determined by the Advertisement Board.

    b) Names, trademarks, logos, or other distinguishing figures or expressions and commercial titles and business names of the competitors may be included in advertisements, provided that the advertisement in question complies with the conditions set out in paragraph a). It is also possible to refer to the testimonies of persons and/or institutions with respect to such comparative analysis.

    c) With respect to food advertisements, issues that fall under the scope of a health declaration under relevant legislation shall not be the subject of comparison. 

    Only the issues relating to nutritional characteristics may be used as an element of comparison for food advertisements. Comparative advertisements of food supplements are prohibited.

    d) With respect to advertisements related to the sectors where price corrections and significant market power obligations are regulated by the relevant administrative authorities, a price comparison shall not be made.

    Conclusion

    As set out above, efforts to allow competitors to use each other’s brands, products, etc., for comparative purposes in advertisements have been made for the past couple of years in Turkey, and it is hoped that the resulting legislation will be effective no later than January 1, 2018, making it easier for end users to pick between competing products.

    It is also clear that the applicable legislation makes a distinction between certain types of products, such as foods, healthcare products, and other regulated products in an attempt to minimize any adverse effect on both the market and the end users/customers due to subjective and unlawful comparisons made in advertisements. 

    By Doene Yalcin, Managing Partner, CMS Turkey
    This Article was originally published in Issue 4.3 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.
  • CMS Advises mBank on Sale of mLocum to Archicom

    CMS Advises mBank on Sale of mLocum to Archicom

    CMS has advised mBank on the sale of 79.99% of shares in mLocum S.A, a company specializing in housing projects and property management to Archicom S.A., a developer implementing housing projects, post-industrial facilities, and investments in the premium sector.

    The CMS team was led by CMS Counsel Blazej Zagorski, who commented: “This transaction is yet another example of consolidation made in the property development sector. We are proud that we could support mBank with this project.”

    Zagorski was assisted by Advocates Julita Mazurkiewicz, Grzegorz Paczek, Malgorzata Wdowczyk, and Piotr Przybylski, as well as Counsel Lukasz Dynysiuk.

    CMS did not reply to our inquiry about counsel for Archicom.

  • DZP Advises Polish Ministry of Development on PPP Project for Krakow Tramway

    DZP Advises Polish Ministry of Development on PPP Project for Krakow Tramway

    DZP is announcing that it, Mott MacDonald, and Crido Tax have agreed to provide the Polish Ministry of Development and the City of Krakow with “full-range legal, economic, financial and technical advice, which will include preparing the legal structure for the first project in Poland to design, build, and operate part of a tramway undertaking entitled ‘Krakow Fast Tramway – Stage IV.’”

    According to DZP, the advice provided by the consortium “will include preparing the project structure (and analyzing the possibility of using EU funding) and support in selecting a private partner and concluding the PPP contract. The capital expenditure on this project is over PLN 400 million.”

    At DZP the project will be handled by a team led by Partner Marcin Krakowiak and Senior Associate Magdalena Zabłocka.