Cezary Wisniewski

Cezary is a highly respected Polish lawyer (radca prawny) and academic with more than 30 years’ experience of advising on privatisations, mergers and acquisitions, commercial transactions and international arbitrations. He has acted for many major multinational corporates and financial institutions, investing in Poland and for Polish corporates on their cross-border transactions, with particular expertise in the banking sector.

More recently, Cezary has acted for clients in high-profile international arbitrations, particularly those involving bilateral investment treaty (BIT) disputes. He is also a qualified arbitrator, acting in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) proceedings, as well as in proceedings before the Court of Arbitration at the Polish Chamber of Commerce in Warsaw.

Cezary is senior partner of the firm’s Warsaw office, having previously been managing partner between 2008 and 2012, and heads the Warsaw office’s Litigation, Arbitration & Investigations practice.

Work highlights

Throughout his career, Cezary has advised on many of the market’s major corporate transactions and arbitrations, both before and after Poland’s transition from communism to a market-based economy. Highlights include advising:

• the Polish State Treasury in BIT arbitration proceedings instituted against the Republic of Poland by a Dutch company
• the Polish State Treasury in BIT arbitration proceedings in a dispute with Vivendi and Vivendi Telecom International
• the Polish State Treasury in BIT arbitration proceedings in a dispute with Deutsche Telekom
• the Polish State Treasury on the settlement of a dispute concerning ownership rights in PTC, a leading Polish mobile services provider, the largest corporate dispute ever in Poland
• Telekomunikacja Polska (now Orange Polska), a leading Polish telecommunications provider, in an international arbitration with Danish Polish Telecommunications Group (DPTG) in a dispute about the building of the North-South Line fibre optical telecommunications system 
• the selling shareholders on the €2.1bn IPO of PZU, the largest insurance company in Poland, in 2010

Cezary is president of the International Chamber of Commerce Poland (ICC Poland), whose members include leading Polish blue chip corporates and banks.

Cezary is a member of the Arbitration Board of the Court of Arbitration at the Polish Chamber of Commerce.

Since 1984, Cezary has lectured on civil and commercial law at the University of Warsaw as Assistant Professor. He is chairman of the Expert Council at Lazarski Law School, bringing together prominent practitioners to advise on how the university should educate law students to make them competitive in the market place.

He regularly speaks at international arbitration-related seminars and conferences. He writes extensively for leading magazines and publications on commercial law and arbitration, and his publications include:

“Spory korporacyjne w praktyce arbitrażowej – perspektywa polska i niemiecka” [Corporate Disputes in Arbitration Practice: Polish and German Perspective] C.H. Beck, 2017 with Witold Jurcewicz and Karl Pörnbacher

“Who Should Know The Law: The Arbitrators Or The Parties?”, Kluwer Arbitration Blog, 3 October 2016, with Alicja Zielińska

“Zdatność arbitrażowa sporów korporacyjnych - perspektywa polska” [Arbitrability of corporate disputes - the Polish perspective], Przegląd Prawa Handlowego, 2015, with Witold Jurcewicz

“Arbitration - Friendly for Whom”?, Arbitraż i Mediacja, 2015

>“Wpływ umów BIT na suwerenność państw” [Bilateral Investment Treaties and the State sovereignty], Przegląd Prawa Handlowego, 2013, with Marcin Dziurda

“Po co nam umowy o wzajemnym popieraniu i ochronie inwestycji” [Why we need bilateral investment treaties], Rzeczpospolita Daily, 2008

“Funkcje kapitału zakładowego w spółce z o.o.” [Meaning Of Share Capital in a Limited Liability Company], Przegląd Podatkowy, 1992

Cezary studied law at both the University of Warsaw and University of Bonn, and holds a doctorate in law from Warsaw University.

He speaks Polish, English and German.