Event Report

The Legal 500 GC Summit – Poland 2023 was held on 26 October at the highly regarded Raffles Europejski in Warsaw, bringing together more than 100 in-house counsel from the region’s most notable companies, filling up the auditorium.

The event began with a keynote presentation from Research Editor Nathan Oseroff-Spicer at Legal 500, which then segued into a discussion on upcoming EU technology regulation lead by PricewaterhouseCoopers counsel Łukasz Łyczko. He was joined by Michał Kurowski, group IT transformation leader, Raiffeisen Bank International; Katarzyna Urbańska, director of the legal and legislative team, Związek Banków Polskich; and Karol Zieliński, member of the management board, mPay. This proved a lively discussion amongst the four lawyers, which ran five minutes over time due to the complexity of the topic.

This was followed by Wolf Theiss’ panel on M&A transactions, lead by partners Anna Dąbrowska and Krzysztof Libiszewski. The large panel included notable GCs Agnieszka Skowronek, general counsel/chief legal officer, at Grupa Eurocash; Dawid Radziszewski, general counsel and head of corporate development, Selvita; and Łukasz Dunaj, general counsel, Atrium / G City Europe; alongside Marek Szydłowski, advisor to the board at Żabka Group. This panel was well-received by the attended in-house counsel, since it covered a highly topical issue for all present.

Following a short coffee break, Karol Tatara, founder and CEO of Tatara & Partners gave a riveting presentation on share deals versus asset deals in distressed asset investments in Poland. Then we heard from partners Małgorzata Krasnodębska-Tomkiel and Dorothy Hansberry-Bieguńska of Hansberry Tomkiel, who covered new competition law rules that were implemented in July 2023. The conversation brought about some interesting comments from attendees, who were interested in the updated rules and its relevance to in-house counsel. Concluding the day, Elżbieta Viroux-Benmansour, founder and managing partner of Viroux & Partners, provided key insights into dispute prevention through effective collaterals. Her talk also lead to a lively discussion amongst attendees during the Q&A section. Finally, Nathan Oseroff-Spicer gave some brief concluding remarks about the successful GC Summit and legal developments in Poland.

The event concluded with drinks and canapes, with many GCs expressing excitement over the series of panels. We were happy to also see members of two Networking Sponsors in attendance, Ligit and Traple Konarski Podrecki and Partners, who graciously helped support the event, speaking with GCs about their experiences and expectations for the future. One GC privately noted how it was good to see many in-house counsel from the GC Summit – Poland 2022 attending, but even better to see a younger generation of GCs he had not met before in attendance, both on stage and listening to the talks. The Polish legal space continues to grow, and we at The Legal 500 are happy to be present in Poland to help highlight continuing major developments in Poland.

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