Christian Schmidt

Partner
Rechtsanwalt

German Desk

Christian is a German attorney-at-law admitted by the Warsaw Bar Association as a foreign lawyer. Specializes in legal services for foreign investments in Poland and in Polish-German legal relations. Advises, in particular, German-speaking clients investing in Poland as well as Polish companies and institutions conducting transactions in Germany and other German-speaking countries. Heads the GESSEL German Desk team.

Languages:

BIO

Christian has experience in many legal areas, including mergers and acquisitions and direct investments in industries such as metallurgy, construction and real estate, automotive, food processing, pharmaceuticals, transportation, mass media, banking and insurance. Advises, among other entities, German banks and financial institutions granting loans to Polish entities as well as companies involved in various projects in Poland. An important part of his business is providing day-to-day advice in areas such as corporate law, civil law and labour law to Polish clients who have subsidiaries or operate in Germany (German law) and to German-speaking clients in Poland (Polish law).

In 1995, began practicing at the Frankfurt law firm Boesebeck Droste, moving to its Warsaw office in 1997. From 2000 to 2004, was the managing partner at the Warsaw office of Lovells, an international law firm. Since October 2005, has been a partner at GESSEL, where he heads the German Desk team.

Prior to practicing law, worked as an adjunct professor in the Central and Eastern Europe Department at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Private Law in Hamburg from 1982 to 1983 and 1986 to 1989. From 1989 to 1994, served as an adjunct professor at the Department of International, European and Public Law and at the Institute for Foreign and International Economic Law (AIW), as well as at the Environmental Law Research Center at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt.

Experience

German Desk

Provides day-to-day advice to a German home appliance manufacturer in connection with the management of its Polish subsidiaries:

  • Advised a German textile manufacturer on the restructuring of its Polish subsidiary
  • Advised an Austrian real estate company on the acquisition and commercialization of various real estate facilities in Poland
  • Advised German and Spanish banks and financial institutions and borrowers on financing projects in Poland and securing lenders’ claims by establishing collateral under Polish law
  • Advised Polish banks and borrowers on establishing collateral on borrowers’ assets in Germany
  • Advised Polish banks and financial institutions in connection with financial transactions under German law
  • Advised a Polish state institution in the field of greenhouse gas emissions trading, including in connection with negotiations with the European Energy Exchange in Leipzig
  • Provided advice and legal services to a Polish computer hardware distributor in the acquisition of a German company in this industry from a trustee in bankruptcy proceedings
  • Advised a Polish orthopaedic equipment manufacturer on the acquisition of a business from the bankruptcy estate of a leading German wheelchair manufacturer
  • Advised a private equity fund on its investment in a German internet advertising group
  • Represented a Polish manufacturer of power equipment in litigation with a German contractor before a court in Germany
  • Provides ongoing advice to a German turkey meat producer with Polish contractors
  • Represented Polish clients before the German Bundeskartellamt to obtain merger approval with effect on the German market

Education and achievements

  • Studied law at the Universities of Bielefeld and Hamburg (1981)
  • Legal postgraduate studies at the University of St. Petersburg (1983 – 1985)
  • Legal training articles (Referendariat) at the Hanseatic Higher Court of Appeals (Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht) in Hamburg with internships at the Federal Environment Agency in Berlin (Umweltbundesamt) and in Nairobi (United Nations Environment Program – UNEP) from 1985 to 1989; Fellow of the Academy of International Law in The Hague in 1994; admitted to practice by the Warsaw Bar Association as a foreign lawyer (2004)
  • Recommendation in the Legal 500 ranking in real estate, banking and finance for German-speaking clients (2009)
  • Distinction in Global Chambers ranking in M&A / corporate services as Foreign Expert for Germany ( 2018 and 2019)

Academic publications