Author: ts_pm

Archicom, a quoted company, entered into preliminary agreements for the acquisition of nearly 80% of mLokum’s shares from mBank for PLN 87.6 million. The transaction is to be completed in two stages. One part of the transaction – i.e. PLN 32.8 million – will be financed with the developer’s own funds.

The transaction was drafted by attorneys Paweł Wójcik and Elżbieta Kamińska.

The transaction was preceded by an audit carried out by a GWW team consisting of 6 members – including corporate law and real estate law experts and lawyers providing professional services related to the investment and development process.

GWW was once again named the top-tier firm for TMT in the area of legal advisory services for telecommunications, media and new technologies companies. We have topped this category consistently since 2009.

In addition, the following three GWW practices were recommended:
•    Tax / retain 2nd place in the listing of recommended firms, as they have consistently since 2012;
•    Energy and natural resources / consistently since 2011;
•    Real estate and construction / consistently since 2012.

In the current edition of the Ranking, we also secured 10 individual recommendations for GWW lawyers. This year, they were:

TMT

• Rafal Duczek
• Wacław Knopkiewicz 

Energy and natural resources

• Wacław Knopkiewicz
• Dariusz Turek

Tax

• Tomasz Burczyński
• Artur Cmoch
• Andrzej Ladziński
• Andrzej Próchnicki

Real estate and construction

• Joanna Sebzda-Załuska
• Jacek Wilczewski
• Pawel Wójcik

 

Complete ranking results are available on the website of Legalease.

Polityka Insight – an analytical centre generating and popularising information about politics, the economy and European affairs – announced the results of the 2nd edition of the Ranking of Regulatory Law Firms. The Ranking covers firms that give regulatory advice connected with public business law executed by authorities such as the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK), the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE), the Energy Regulatory Office (URE) and the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF).

GWW law firm has come top in the “Telecommunications” category for the second year in a row.

The ‘gold’ in such a prestigious ranking confirms the excellent condition of GWW’s telecommunications practice, as also noted by international rating companies who have awarded us the accolade of leader and/or recommended law firm for legal services provided to TMT (telecommunications, media, new technologies) entities every year since 2007.

IMAGE: Wacław Knopkiewicz accepting the diploma for GWW.

Polityka Insight’s ranking is the only qualitative analysis of the law firm sector in Poland, based, among other things, on survey responses from Polish law firms and their clients – the largest companies in regulated sectors.

Detailed results are available on Polityka Insight’s website, link here.

The editors of Dziennik Gazeta Prawna have announced the results of the 11th Ranking of Tax Advisory Firms and Tax Advisors (March 2017).

The following GWW team members were named among the leading tax advisors:

• Małgorzata Militz – 2nd place in “VAT”;
• Tomasz Burczyński – 3rd place in “Court Disputes” (he also made the TOP 3 in this category in 2016); and
• Kamil Szczęsny – 3rd place in “Court Disputes” (made the TOP 3 in the “Local Taxes and Charges” category in 2016).

Moreover, since 2010, GWW’s tax practice has been consistently ranked as one of the top six tax advisory firms in the “Large Companies” category (employing 10 or more tax advisors).

The ranking committee takes into account four criteria: the revenue per expert, the number of clients per expert, the revenue per client, and the annual average number of qualified advisors and experts.

Dear Clients, thank you so much for your trust and being our greatest inspiration!

The head of GWW’s Private Client team, Aldona Leszczyńska-Mikulska, has been accepted as member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), London Branch (there is no STEP branch yet in Poland).

The Society brings together established and highly experienced advisors dealing with financial and estate planning as well as advisory for family companies (more on step.org).

Full STEP members, such as Aldona Leszczyńska-Mikulska, are known as TEPs. Such professionals are internationally considered to be key experts in their fields and the TEP designation is a confirmation of their qualifications and experience.

On 31 January 2017, the District Court for Warsaw-Mokotów in Warsaw agreed with the arguments of the attorney at law, Urszula Darkowska, and issued a favourable judgment for mortgage customers of Millennium Bank. The Court decided that:

• the Bank should refund the commission fees paid thus far; and
• the commission provisions grossly violate consumer interests and are not binding on consumers as prohibited (abusive) clauses.

COMMENT | Urszula Darkowska, attorney at law (admitted as radca prawny), heading GWW’s litigation practice in Warsaw:

It is clear from the oral explanations justifying the judgment that the Court agreed with us that the commission clauses should be deemed abusive. The Court stressed that it is unacceptable for a consumer to pay a commission fee without any certainty as to how the Bank will use it, including whether the Bank will use it to lower the risk related to low down payment at all.

The judgment is good news for mortgage customers of Millennium Bank, who agreed to replace low down payment insurance with the commission fee. Commission clauses are an obvious example of a gross violation of consumer’s economic interests by banks. And this judgment is the first one to confirm it.

On 13 December 2016, the Supreme Administrative Court fully shared the opinion of the court of first instance (the Province Administrative Court in Krakow) and upheld a ruling in favour of developers carrying out projects in Krakow. GWW represented a Wrocław developer in the dispute with the city of Krakow (Małopolska province).

The litigation strategy was developed by attorney Paweł Wójcik, who represented the client before both courts, while a crucial role in this project was also played by attorney Dorota Chramęga and attorney Joanna Sebzda-Załuska.

The Court ruled that Krakow illegally demanded that developers pay a high fee to change the intended purpose of the right of perpetual usufruct of land – as much as 25 per cent of the real property value after usufruct reclassification. The dispute concerned reclassifying that right from services to the residential sector.

Details of the litigation may be found here, link.

Attorney at law (adwokat) Kamil Szczęsny qualified for a small group of 30 finalists in the Rising Stars Lawyers – tomorrow’s leaders 2016 competition. Last year’s competition laureate was attorney Katarzyna Blachowicz, who heads the labour law practice at GWW.

Kamil Szczęsny has, for the past three years,“(…) led or directly supervised over 2 thousand real estate tax projects, allowing GWW’s clients to avoid taking a time-consuming legal path and to save approximately PLN 200 million. He is admired for more than just the number of cases he has taken. “What is also impressive is his litigation efficiency and actual impact on legislation (…)”, the justification says.

The competition’s aim is to find young lawyers who provide legal services of the highest standard using their knowledge, enterprise and social attitude. Among the criteria, apart from age (up to 35), are innovation, creativeness, and an ability to sense new market trends, as well as knowledge, preferably developed by way of academic work.

The organisers are the daily newspaper, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, and the publishers, Wolters Kluwer Poland.

Owing to numerous optimisation processes and signals from Clients who wished to entrust the management of their assets to a trusted advisor, we have decided to establish a specialised Private Client practice at GWW – consulting services for individual clients and family enterprises (covering, among other things, asset planning, tax optimisation, family and inheritance matters).

The new practice will be developed by attorney Aldona Leszczyńska-Mikulska, who will manage a Private Client team – a new unit in GWW’s structure. The practice is run under the GWW Private brand.

Aldona Leszczyńska-Mikulska, attorney at law (radca prawny), tax advisor, together with her co-workers – Tomasz Krzywański, legal trainee, and Tomasz Piejak, 5th year law student at Warsaw University – joined GWW in October 2016. The team previously worked at the law firm Wardyński i Wspólnicy, where Aldona and her colleagues have developed a consulting practice for individual clients over the past several years.

You will find Private Client services, covering tax and legal consulting, under the tab: What we do / GWW Private, link here.