Selected experience
- We advised a wealthy family on all matters connected with its minority stake in a company which is the principal shareholder of a large food producer. Our advice included such issues as transfer of shares in the form of a gift, transfers in trust, and forced redemption of shares.
- We advised a senior executive and investor in a foreign supplier of IT solutions in the process of establishing a family foundation. We also represented the client in structuring their exit from the business and reinvesting the proceeds via family foundations.
- We advise a Swiss firm managing family assets in the liquidation of a 30-year-old multilevel offshore structure of a Polish tax resident controlled through trusts, with companies in Poland, the UK, and the British Virgin Islands, in connection with the death of the founder of the structure (the father of the Polish resident).
- We advised an international family in a cross-border inheritance case involving citizens of a number of countries who had inherited real estate from their Polish ancestors living abroad.
- We advised a client in a case involving notification of inheritance of various classes of assets (including a large art collection and securities portfolio) in several jurisdictions, restructuring of the assets in an offshore structure founded by the client’s father, and administering selected financial matters involving Polish and foreign financial institutions.
- We advised a group of individuals pursuing an innovative and potentially groundbreaking cryptocurrency project. Our advice covered both legal and tax issues.
- We advised a long-term client, a senior executive heading one of the biggest retail chains in Europe, in his dealings with a private equity investor (owner of the chain).
- We are assisting a German citizen who resides with her family in Poland on a range of tax issues, involving the business she operates, investments in securities, financial arrangements with other family members (including asset planning and succession), and everyday tax matters.
- We are advising a Polish tax resident who is in the process of moving to another country. This entails an assessment of potential tax and legal issues involving inheritance, tax on unrealised profits (exit tax), asset protection, taxation in the foreign jurisdiction, and various other legal and tax issues.
- We advised HNWIs in arranging complicated personal, business and asset-protection issues in connection with their move from Poland to another European jurisdiction. The first phase of the assignment included establishing a trust structure in a European financial centre to protect the assets, a cross-border corporate restructuring connected with the transfer of the individuals’ shares in a leading manufacturing company, and establishment of a holding structure. Our support also addressed the issue of tax residency, transfer of real estate, and designing asset management structures with a view to succession planning.
- We designed a succession structure for the owner of an international group making electrical devices, based on private foundations across three jurisdictions. The work included selection of locations ensuring asset protection while maintaining the owners’ influence, an analysis of legislative risks (including exit tax and CFC), and coordination of tax aspects of the transfer of operating companies from multiple countries. The statute we drafted for the Polish family foundation was patterned on solutions developed in Liechtenstein and the United States.
- We supported a Polish shareholder of one of Europe’s leading manufacturing companies in the sale of a minority stake via a newly established Polish family foundation. Effective establishment of the foundation was essential, because the client intended to take advantage of available forms of tax relief as part of the succession plan, and the sale proceeds were a key driver for establishing the foundation.
- We advised several well-known families in recovering real estate or compensation for palaces on one of the most prestigious streets in Warsaw which were nationalised after the Second World War and subsequently occupied by foreign diplomatic missions.
- We advised a wealthy family of pre-war landowners who had lost a large property near Warsaw as a result of post-war nationalisation. Due to the complicated legal status of the current plots derived from that property, we conducted dozens of proceedings before the administrative authorities, the administrative courts and the civil courts aimed at the return of most of the plots and their subsequent resale, as well as obtaining compensation for the portions of the property which were unlawfully transferred to third parties. We managed to achieve this without entering into conflicts with the local community, even though the restitution claims were asserted in part to real estate currently being used by entities benefitting the public.
- We represented the heirs of a pre-war industrialist and public activist in judicial, administrative, and administrative court proceedings aimed at resolving the legal status of a number of plots developed with buildings on one of the most prestigious streets in one of the largest cities in Poland (currently housing public administrative offices). We also represented the family in litigation over the settlement of substantial offsetting claims between the clients and the city. These cases were resolved through direct negotiations with the public authorities and conclusion of an in-court settlement, bringing to an end a decades-old dispute over the property as well as any other pending proceedings in the matter. Our firm took over the case at a stage when it had given rise to many baseless controversies, which we successfully overcame.
- We advised an art collector in contacts with the government administration, evaluating the risks and securing the client’s collection of artworks against potential restitution measures during the process of cross-border removal of the works outside of the EU (administrative, criminal and civil risks).
- We provided comprehensive advice to the minority shareholders in their exit from a multi-generation family company, one of the largest producers of processed foods. In particular, we assisted in structuring the transaction and in negotiating and drafting the transaction documentation, involving sale of the shares to the company for the purpose of redemption. We also advised on all of the post-closing activities, including in relation to reinvestment of the proceeds by each of the family members (directly, or indirectly via family foundations).
- We advised a client moving their tax residence to Poland from outside the EU, and planning to take advantage of lump-sum taxation of foreign income. Our advice included comprehensive analysis of the client’s future income streams to determine whether they qualified for this regime, coordination of legal support in their former country of residence, and support in gathering documentation and guiding the client through the entire process of tax relocation.
- We advised an individual client on the tax on unrealised profits (exit tax) in connection with a planned change in tax residency following a period of residence in Poland. Our support included analysis of numerous elements of the client’s assets which might be subject to the exit tax, determining their value for tax purposes, as they had greatly appreciated in value during the client’s stay in Poland, as well as assessing the client’s potential reporting obligations and tax obligations. We also coordinated the cooperation with foreign tax advisers, to ensure seamless support in the change of tax residency and proper structuring of the relocation process.
- We designed and implemented a holding structure in Luxembourg for a Polish group of companies from the agri-business sector, whose owner was a resident of a tax-favoured country. As part of the project, we established a private foundation for the client in Liechtenstein, to which the holding structure was then contributed.
- We advised a foreign client in the process of recovering a work of art which after the war was mistakenly delivered to a public museum along with a shipment of artworks from Fischhorn Castle in Austria which had been looted from Poland. An out-of-court settlement was reached under which the painting was removed from the museum inventory and handed over by the museum, and approval was obtained to ship the painting outside the EU.
- We advised a private client in establishing a fund in an offshore jurisdiction investing in cryptocurrencies, and an affiliated Polish company delivering IT services to the fund. The project required a detailed analysis of the regulations on controlled foreign corporations, to ensure that the client could reinvest at a low tax rate the profit generated by the fund. A key element of our advice was comprehensive design of the transfer-pricing model in dealings between the fund and the Polish company, including selection of the payment methodology, drafting the required documentation, and justifying the arm’s-length basis of the fee for the affiliate’s services.
- Lawyers from our aviation practice successfully advised a Polish private investor in the purchase of a Vulcanair plane from the manufacturer in Italy. We provided full legal support for the transaction, including negotiation of the terms of the sale contract, tax issues, and legal aspects of delivery and registration of the aircraft.