Date: 07 February 2024

January comes naturally as a time for summarising the highlights of the past twelve months. Year 2023 was busy for us, both in terms of our client work and the life of our organisation. What exactly happened?

 

Professional highlights

 

We have some professional success stories to tell:

 

  • We were significantly involved in lawmaking, taking part in pre-consultations on tax strategy regulations and in the consultation process regarding draft guidance on withholding tax.
  • We secured a final judgment in a case worth nearly PLN 50 million where we defended a claim of unfair competition.
  • Our transfer pricing team completed a further series of nearly 100 projects for various sectors. We also acquired LSEG Data & Analytics (formerly Eikon Refinitiv), a global industry-leading financial transfer pricing analysis tool that enables us to offer top-quality services also for complex financial transactions.
  • We conducted a case concluded with a precedential judgment on the chargeability of VAT in the IT industry.
  • We supported a green energy producer in innovative projects involving energy storage, wind farms, PV and hydrogen.
  • We assisted industrial companies and other customers in choosing energy vendors and negotiating gas and electricity purchase contracts, in developing on-site PV and gas tank projects, and in negotiating PPAs.
  • We helped clients negotiate energy price caps protecting them against increases and obtain energy subsidies from state-run NFOŚ fund.
  • We were of assistance in business combinations/restructurings for several dozen entities in the manufacturing and real estate development sectors.
  • We drafted a host of remote work policies and employment manual amendments for our clients in connection with new employee rights enacted in the Labour Code.

 

 

Rankings and recognitions

 

Every year we take part in law firm and tax consultancy rankings, regularly coming in high. In the 2023 ranking by Rzeczpospolita daily, Sendero Legal was ranked third and Sendero Tax second in the region among firms specialising in assisting big business. Moreover, it was the first time we scored as many as three individual recommendations:

 

 

Webinars

 

But client work did not take all our time. We also focused on knowledge sharing.

Year after year we have been offering more and more free workshops and webinars. Last year we delivered over 40 dedicated on-line courses for hundreds of participants from the following organisations:

 

Wałbrzyska Special Economic Zone – We take pride in having this partner as our longest relationship in workshop delivery. The early 2023 meetings followed up on the series launched in September 2022:

 

  • “A different perspective on occupational safety and health”
  • “Commercial contract basics – a practical guide for sales and procurement departments”

 

Later in 2023 we launched the following series:

  • “Anna Wieczorek on environmental protection”
  • “A short primer on taxes”

 

Legnicka Special Economic Zone – This is the second year of our relationship. Our joint projects last year included a series of workshops entitled “Procedures and other unnecessary things, or Compliance for the everyman” and, later in the year, the launch of “A tax hour” series.

 

Katowicka Special Economic Zone – This is where we regularly provide OSH and employment law education, including an all-year-round 2023 series entitled “Employment Law Wednesdays”.

Polish Automotive Industry Association – This relationship started in late 2023, providing a platform for tax and legal meetings on topics of interest for automotive companies.

 

All those relationships are being successfully continued.

 

In addition we provide our proprietary webinars. Our employment law changes seminar organised and conducted by  Filip Firut and Małgorzata Mroczkowska regularly attracts an audience reaching hundreds of participants.

 

On-site conferences

 

We have delivered three on-site conferences:

  • Office and warehouse leases in time of pandemic, crisis and remote work
  • Things could be simpler … 5 years after GDPR came into force
  • Is PIP right?

That third conference is where we discuss the annual report of the Polish Labour Inspectorate and its major implications for manufacturing and service companies. The first edition took place in December 2022. As it turned out, the topic attracts huge interest and the conference naturally became a regular feature in our on-site events schedule. We plant to organise it in 2024, too.

 

VAT Blog, Companies Blog, Tax Podcast

 

We published a total of 34 posts on our VAT blog and Companies Blog. Our regular content development efforts resulted in dozens of thousands of views.

In addition, we produced further episodes of our Tax Podcast! One year after launch, the podcast attracts hundreds of plays for each episode, which only tells us you like the format.

 

Staff

 

Staff development is what gives us particular satisfaction! People success stories always make us happy and proud.

Our partner Anna Skowron earned an MBA degree while partner Anna Wieczorek was invited to co-author a book entitled 50 Osobistości Biznesu (50 Business Personalities) for Stowarzyszenie SOS Wioski Dziecięce, a charity. This is also the right place to mention Sylwia Matuszek, who was officially admitted as a qualified tax advisor.

Our staff grows constantly, as do the ranks of those whose seniority counts in many years and who share their experience with new hires. There are among us those who remember Sendero’s beginnings and have received 10-year service recognition awards:

 

Altogether, there are already more than 50 of us!

 

Firm-internal highlights

 

Several more developments merit attention due to their importance for us:

 

We continue supporting Bach Festival. In 2022 we celebrated our 15th anniversary and so decided to sponsor that year’s Bach Festival and combine our jubilee with the inaugural concert. The extraordinary experience has prompted us to stay with the Bach Festival for longer. We are happy to continue contributing to the organisation of such a unique and exceptional event.

December saw us take part in a Plain Legal Polish workshop. This was the second dedicated workshop with linguist Tomasz Piekot. We care for how we speak and write Polish, while legible and correct use of the language for our work is of huge importance not just for us, but for our clients as well. It was already several years ago that we became the first among Polish law firms to use the assistance of the Plain Polish Lab (Pracownia Prostej Polszczyzny).

We recorded a professional Christmas audio play with the participation of our staff! It gave a lot of joy not only to us, but also to our clients, who appreciated the unique format of these Christmas greetings.

 

Plans for 2024

What are our plans for 2024?

We continue everything we have been doing so far. We also have plans to constantly develop and enhance our activities and will surely keep you informed about that.

To all our clients, audiences, friends and all those who wish us well – have a good, prosperous and healthy new year!