During the last few weeks criminal law has been the subject of many talk shows on radio and TV as a result of the release from prison in early February of a certain Mariusz T. Those who do not follow the Polish media may wonder who this person is. He received the...
Jan Willem de Haan
Close ties
As I write, preparations for the fi rst state visit of King WillemAlexander and Queen Máxima are in full swing. Our Chamber is in charge of organising the match-making for the accompanying business delegation, and the embassy staff are putting together a very detailed...
End-of-year reflections
It is November and the end of the year is approaching rapidly. New tax laws will soon come into force, putting question marks over many tax structures using Dutch BVs. The essence of the new law is that a Polish entrepreneur who owns a foreign company which derives...
Expected changes to the Polish “spoowka zoo”
The Council of Ministers has just adopted the basis for a new law changing the Code of Commercial Companies in much the same way as the Dutch law on the BV was changed in late 2012 (see Bulletin 40). The motivation is also similar: the competition from other EU...
Cultural Differences
I recently attended a very interesting presentation by a gentleman named Kevin Brownsey about the cultural differences between Poles and other nationalities. I was a bit skeptical at first - there are a lot of amateurs in this culture business. To prove my point, a...
Who should be on the board of my polish subsidiary?
This is one of the questions I get asked most often by my clients. These clients are often Dutch companies in the process of setting up a Polish subsidiary or which have just acquired one. In most cases, we are talking about a Polish limited liability company. Often...
Leipzig – das neue Berlin?
Welgeteld één afspraak had ik. Graag had ik er meer gehad, maar niemand die ik over Leipzig sprak had daar contacten. Iedereen had wel links of rechts gehoord, dat er iets in Leipzig gaande was. Maar niemand wist er het fijne van. Alleen geruchten. Veel kunstenaars...
Procederen voor de Belgische rechter: houden wij de zaak aan of weerhouden wij hem?
Ik herinner mij de morgen nog goed, waarop ik mij naar het Paleis van Justitie in Brussel begaf voor mijn eerste “kortgeding”. Kort daarvoor had ik op basis van de Europese Diplomarichtlijn met succes de vereiste examens Belgisch recht afgelegd om mij in te kunnen...
De ‘unknown unknowns’ van de Spaanse rechtspraktijk
De persconferenties van Donald Rumsfeld tijdens de Irak oorlog volgde ik met zekere belangstelling vanwege zijn dialectiek. Fameus is zijn uitspraak over de “knowns” en de “unknowns”. Op de vraag over het verband tussen het regime van Saddam Hussein en Al Qaeda...
Onwenselijkheden in de Chinese advocatuur
In mijn acht jaar als advocaat in China ben ik regelmatig verbazingwekkende situaties tegengekomen. Zo ook onlangs weer. Een cliënt vertelde over zijn vriend die ruim tien jaar geleden een bedrijf in Shanghai heeft opgezet. De opzet is destijds niet goed gedaan...