Prof. Andrzej Szumański from the JU Faculty of Law and Administration was elected to the Governing Council of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). The international organisation aims to facilitate the harmonisation of international private law in different countries through the development of model regulations and guidelines.
New members were elected during the 82nd UNIDROIT session which took place last week in Rome. Prof. Andrzej Szumański is the only Pole in the 25-person governing body, which features lawyers from Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Finland, Canada, Mexico, Paraguay, South Africa, South Korea and Japan.
The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) is an independent intergovernmental organisation with its seat in the Villa Aldobrandini in Rome. Its purpose is to study needs and methods for modernising, harmonising and co-ordinating private and in particular commercial law as between states and groups of states and to formulate uniform law instruments, principles and rules to achieve those objectives.
Prof. Andrzej Szumański is the head of the JU Chair of Business Private Law. He has been working closely with the Jagiellonian University ever since he began studying law in 1976. In 1983, he passed a judiciary exam at the Kraków court, achieving the highest grade. He has been listed in the Regional Bar Chamber in Kraków as an attorney of law since 1996. He became a professor in 1998. In that same year, he began his cooperation with the international law firm CMS Cameron McKenna in Warsaw.
He has been a vice-president of the Arbitration Court at the Chamber of Brokerage House since 2004, as well as a judge at the Arbitration Court at State Clearing House for two terms. Since 2007, he has been a president of the Stock Exchange Court at the Warsaw Stock Exchange, as well as a member of the Board of the Polish Arbitration Association. He is the president of the Honorary Court at the Kraków Chamber of Commerce. He is the vice-president of the board of directors of PKN Orlen SA and a member of the boards of directors of VRG SA, W. Kruk SA, Ferrum SA, Ponar Wadowice SA, Alventa SA and Kolej Gondolowa Jaworzyna Krynicka SA.
Prof. Szumański is one of the three authors of the draft of the Polish Commercial Company Code of 15 September 2000 (and the author of its later Amendment of 12 December 2003). He also co-authored the draft of the Polish Law on offset transactions of 10 September 1999 and participated in developing the OECD Principle of Corporate Governance of 1999. He was an advisor of the Polish delegation to the UNCITRAL Working Group concerning a new version of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules of 2010, and, later on, the UNCITRAL transparency rules on an investment arbitration. In the period of 2008–2010, he was a full member of the Polish Civil Law Codification Committee appointed by the Prime Minister of the Poland. More recently, he presided over a team of experts on corporate law working with the Polish Ministry of State Assets.
Since 1990, Prof. Szumański has been intensively involved in consultancy works as a lawyer and an attorney of law. He is a member of the Supervisory Board of several corporations, including the companies listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange. He wrote various manuals and commentaries on corporate and partnership law, securities law, arbitration law as well as several monographies and a number of articles and glossaries legal rulings of the Polish Supreme Court on domestic commercial law and international trade law.
