K. Helińska & Partners, law office, has been operating in Poland since 2001, though it dates back to 1997 when two founding partners met at Ernst & Young. Four years of close cooperation between the two have lead to the foundation of a new law office in November 2001. Before the partners had been working at the tax and legal departments of Ernst & Young office located in Szczecin. That is where we gained our knowledge, business-oriented approach and market experience. We have been given a lot by Ernst & Young worldwide and delivered quite a few ideas to the organisation and mostly to our business partners.

Our expanding law office delivers business-oriented advice based on our local, regional, national and international experience. We are driven by the developing Polish market though we operate according to the established standards brought to Poland by matured law offices that had been founded by multinational corporate bodies. We build bridges to meet dynamic growth and precious tradition.

We are specialists in different branches of law and are ready to provide assistance and advice in order to meet our business partners' specific requirements. K. Helińska & Partners assists partners in anticipating and responding to the changing regulations, economic trends and thus the challenges of the modern market.

We advise on strategies, negotiations, litigations and assist in structuring and closing transactions as well as other business events.

Our partners are medium-sized businesses representing different industries, both national and international.

In response to the needs of our clients, the following basic service lines have been dynamically developed at our law office:

1. Company Law including mergers and acquisitions
2. Commercial Law
3. Civil Law including contractual aspects
4. Business Negotiations
5. Intellectual Property
6. Tax and Customs Law and International Tax Law
7. Labour Law
8. Administrative Law including Environmental Protection Law, Foreign Exchange Law and Construction Law
9. Litigation including Tax Litigation

Within the above service lines we are dealing in particular with:

• company and commercial law with regard to mergers and acquisitions, cross-border investments and joint ventures as well as shareholder agreements,
• civil and commercial contracts including sales contracts, lease agreements, assignment contracts, franchising agreements and licence agreements,
• negotiations with debtors or creditors in order to conclude debt repayment agreements or restructuring receivables,
• litigation, where first we offer our assistance in negotiations to conclude an arrangement for repaying debt receivables by the debtor in order to avoid the necessity of initiating a potentially time-consuming and costly court procedure. In our experience this is the least costly and often the most effective method of dealing with debtors,
• tax litigation including representation of the client's interest before tax authorities, the Highest Administrative Court and the Supreme Court,
• restructuring and sanitation of companies and if necessary their liquidation or bankruptcy,
• due diligence reviews aimed at assessing the risk of a target business - in the case of a merger or acquisition it may be necessary to verify the legal and financial (including tax) situation of the target company. Therefore we are ready to provide you with due diligence services concerning the legal status of the business entity or unit. The scope of our due diligence concerns, in particular, the verification of the ownership titles, the review of commercial contracts and employment contracts, the status of any court or administrative litigation, environmental issues, and any permits or concessions possessed by the business entity or unit. In each particular case the scope of the due diligence varies depending on the client’s needs. Due to the co-operation also with management consultants and auditors we are able to perform a full scale due diligence to present a complete view of the subject matter of the transaction,
• intellectual property law, competition law and law of trademarks including assistance in protecting and registering innovative designs and patents,
• labour law in all areas covered by Polish Labour Law, including drafting and terminating employment contracts,
• transfer pricing investigations aimed to provide the client with transfer pricing documentation required by Polish Corporate Income Tax Act as well as the one necessary for the client’s internal (management) purposes,
• tax planning including short-, medium- and longterm strategies based on inventive thinking and reliable judgement of tax perspective ie Corporate Income Tax, Personal Income Tax, VAT, Customs Duty, Excise, Civil Actions Tax and local taxes,
  customs services meaning a comprehen-sive range of quality services in the field of customs duties and border charges, relying on our expert knowledge and practical experience. We provide assistance in all Polish customs-related problems whenever and wherever the need arises,
• anti-monopoly law - the limits imposed by Polish Anti-Monopoly Law have to be considered when structuring a business. We can help clients prepare and examine co-operations and mergers, represent them before the anti-monopoly authorities, and ensure that all licence agreements and distribution contracts comply with anti-monopoly legislation,
• administrative law including advisory services on a variety of legal issues including Polish Building Law, Environmental Law, and administrative licensing procedures,
• within business rehabilitation we develop rehabilitation plans for businesses facing crises and advise throughout their implementation. In this regard we can negotiate with suppliers, employees, trade unions and banks,
• real estate law - we advise on the negotiations and conclusion of land purchase contracts as well as financing agreements. Taking into consideration our environmental law knowledge, we help ensure that real estate purchasers are not buying environmental liabilities. We help foreign firms obtain the required permits to purchase real estate and prepare the necessary contracts with the architects, contractors and tenants,
• company secretarial services meaning an area of our assistance which illustrates our close contact with the clients. In this type of services we act as proxies of shareholders at Shareholders’ Meetings and pass appropriate resolutions on behalf of our clients. We also draft all necessary documents in the procedure and represent the company before the registration court to enter data into the appropriate commercial register. We also keep the company's book of resolutions and book of shares by making appropriate entries into these books in accordance with the current legal status of the company,