Prof. of the Warsaw School of Economics Tomasz Siemiątkowski, Ph.D.

He graduated from one of the oldest high schools in Poland (the nearly 850-year-old Marszałek Stanisław Małachowski High School in Płock – the city of his childhood and youth). Graduate (1994) of the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw (summa cum laude), since 1999 an attorney at the Warsaw Bar Association. Doctor of Economic Sciences. Habilitated Doctor of Legal Sciences. Professor at the Warsaw School of Economics (Head of the Department of Economic Law). From 2000 to 2021 a research and teaching employee at the Faculty of Law and Administration of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw (since 2010 on the position of associate professor). Member of the Civil Law Codification Commission (in the term 2015 – 2019, dissolved in December 2015). He created the Academy of Companies Postgraduate Program at SGH, which he has headed since its inception.

From 1999 to 2011, he taught corporate governance (in terms of Polish and American law) in the MBA Program run jointly by SGH and the University of Minnesota (he received the WEMBA Outstanding Instructor First Prize in 2007, and the WEMBA Outstanding Instructor Second Prize in 2008 and 2010). In 2012, he was also recognized by domestic students, receiving the “Inspiration of the Year” award from SGH’s Independent Student Monthly Magazine “Magiel”.

He has been to renowned foreign research centers: University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management (visiting professor, 1999), University of California – Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law (visiting scholar – grantee of the Foundation for Polish Science, 2002-2003) and Max – Planck – Institut für Ausländisches und Internationales Privatrecht in Hamburg (visiting fellow – grantee of MPI, 2004). As part of his academic work abroad, he studied American corporate governance with Prof. R. Buxbaum (Boalt Hall School of Law, UC Berkeley) and comparative corporate governance with Prof. K. J. Hopt (MPI, Hamburg). He also received a Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship to the University of California, Berkeley (2004). He has participated in many international scientific conferences and symposia (including Columbia, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, New York University, Princeton, Stanford and Tokyo University).

Professor Siemiątkowski’s competence in the practice of law – conducted, since 2009, at the Law Firm Głuchowski Siemiątkowski Zwara, and previously at the Law Firm of Tomasz Siemiątkowski, Ph.D., two American law firms and the Law Firm of T. Siemiątkowski, Ph.D., Attorneys and Advisors – is concentrated in the areas of corporate law, corporate governance, mergers, acquisitions and restructuring, capital market law, arbitration, business litigation and health care law. Among other things, he participated in the preparation of the prospectus of the first company formed under foreign law whose shares were admitted to public trading in Poland, he represented the Polish Confederation of Private Employers “Lewiatan” in the proceedings before the Constitutional Tribunal on the introduction of the obligation to use official margins and price rules in the trading of imported drugs, obtaining a favorable ruling for his client, as well as participated in the development and implementation, the first on the Polish public market, of the concept of paying dividends in “bonus” shares.

He served as a member of the supervisory board of, among others, PKO BP S.A. (and Chairman of the Audit Committee of this Board), PLL LOT S.A. and Polbank S.A.. From 2013 to 2017, he was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa S.A. In addition, member of the supervisory board of Royal Bank of Scotland Polska S.A. (2016 – 2019). Currently Chairman of the Council of the Energy for Europe Foundation (FEDE), Chairman of the Football Arbitration Court of the Polish Football Association (PZPN), Vice Chairman of the Council of the Polish Football Association (PZPN) Foundation, member of the Supervisory Board of SPR Wisła Płock S.A. (on behalf of its owner, the Municipality of Plock), and member of the Council of the Polish-American Oncology Foundation.

Co-author of the draft law amending the Code of Commercial Companies and member of the expert team working under the leadership of Prof. S. Soltysinski (2001-2003). Between 200 and 2005, he was a member of the problem team, appointed by the Chairman of the Commission for the Codification of Civil Law, which prepared a draft law introducing the European company into the Polish legal system (in this team he was responsible for developing the regulation of the monist system of corporate governance), and then participated as an expert of the government in the parliamentary work on this project. In December 2009, he was appointed by the Chairman of the Civil Law Codification Commission as a member of the Civil Law Codification Commission’s permanent problem-solving team for the amendment of the Commercial Companies Code (co-author of the draft implementation of Directive 2009/109/EC on reporting and documentation in the case of mergers and divisions of companies). In 2011, he was appointed by the Chairman of the Civil Law Codification Commission as a member of the team for company law. Since 2011 he has been a member of the Legislative Committee of the Supreme Bar Council (chairman of the committee’s business and commercial law team). Prof. Siemiątkowski was also the originator and co-author (together with Advocate R. Potrzeszcz and Prof. P. Wiórk) of the Law on Control of Certain Investments, adopted by the Sejm (the lower chamber of the Polish parliament), almost unanimously, in 2015. He also served as legal advisor to the social action for historical justice (the so-called Appeal 141), which between July 2020 and March 2021 led to the enactment of a law amending the Law on anti-communist opposition activists and persons repressed for political reasons. This action, initiated and carried out by activists of the former anti-communist opposition (J. M. Goliszewski, L. Stall, and G. Kostrzewa – Zorbas), made it possible to “tax” periods of opposition activity, and thus to increase the basis for calculating pension and disability benefits of former oppositionists.

Prof. Siemiątkowski is an arbitrator of the Court of Arbitration at the Polish Chamber of Commerce in Warsaw and the Court of Arbitration at the Polish Confederation of Private Employers “Lewiatan”, as well as a member of the American Law & Economics Association.

He is the author of two monographs: Procuration in Commercial Law Companies, (LexisNexis 1999) and Civil Liability in Capital Companies, (C.H.Beck, 2007), co-author and co-editor of the four-volume commentary to the Code of Commercial Companies published in LexisNexis – Partnerships (2011), Limited Liability Company (2011), Joint Stock Company (2012), Merger, division and transformation of companies (2011), co-author of the System of Private Law vol. 16 – Partnership Law, edited by A. Szajkowski, and vol. 17 – Capital Company Law, edited by S. Soltysinski, author or co-author of dozens of articles in the field of civil and commercial law, published, among others, in “Palestra”, “Przegląd Prawa Handlowego”, “Przegląd Sądowy” and “Przegląd Ustawodawstwa Gospodarczego”. In addition, he serves as Chairman of the Editorial Board of the quarterly “Corporate Governance Review.”

In 2016, he was included by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna in the “Ranking of the 50 Most Influential Lawyers in Poland” and awarded the “Golden Paragraph” – an award given for outstanding achievements in the field of law (for activities in favor of law and the economy).

In 2022, he received the “Award for pro bono activity for media freedom in Poland” from the daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita (from the laudation:” for his commitment to defending freedom of speech, activities to demonstrate the dangers of the so-called LEX TVN coming into force”).

In 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022 leader of the “Rzeczpospolita” Law Firm Ranking in the field of “corporate and commercial law”. In 2023, the leader in the field of “commercial law, corporate law, mergers and acquisitions”.

Additionally, he is a devoted fan of Legia Warsaw, the history of football, political history, as well as tennis and running.

Above all, he is the husband of Renata and the father of Ewa and Adam.