Transferring responsibility to foreign branch managers under Polish law
Chapter 10
If a company is based abroad but conducts business in Poland as a branch, the management’s liability can be transferred in a manner specified by Polish regulations, assessing whether the conditions for declaring bankruptcy of the foreign company are met based on Polish laws.
From the aforementioned EU regulations, it follows that in the case of foreign entities, such as the Maltese company under consideration, whose primary center of main activity is located outside of Poland but has a branch in Poland, the determination of the conditions for bankruptcy that justify filing a petition for bankruptcy may be based on national law since it is relevant. Polish regulations can be applied to the branch of the Maltese company, which falls within the jurisdiction of Polish authorities in initiating bankruptcy proceedings [Judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court dated January 19, 2024, Case No. III FSK 580/23]
Robert Nogacki – licensed legal counsel (radca prawny, WA-9026), Founder of Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec.
There are lawyers who practice law. And there are those who deal with problems for which the law has no ready answer. For over twenty years, Kancelaria Skarbiec has worked at the intersection of tax law, corporate structures, and the deeply human reluctance to give the state more than the state is owed. We advise entrepreneurs from over a dozen countries – from those on the Forbes list to those whose bank account was just seized by the tax authority and who do not know what to do tomorrow morning.
One of the most frequently cited experts on tax law in Polish media – he writes for Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, and Parkiet not because it looks good on a résumé, but because certain things cannot be explained in a court filing and someone needs to say them out loud. Author of AI Decoding Satoshi Nakamoto: Artificial Intelligence on the Trail of Bitcoin’s Creator. Co-author of the award-winning book Bezpieczeństwo współczesnej firmy (Security of a Modern Company).
Kancelaria Skarbiec holds top positions in the tax law firm rankings of Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. Four-time winner of the European Medal, recipient of the title International Tax Planning Law Firm of the Year in Poland.
He specializes in tax disputes with fiscal authorities, international tax planning, crypto-asset regulation, and asset protection. Since 2006, he has led the WGI case – one of the longest-running criminal proceedings in the history of the Polish financial market – because there are things you do not leave half-done, even if they take two decades. He believes the law is too serious to be treated only seriously – and that the best legal advice is the kind that ensures the client never has to stand before a court.
