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Małgorzata Grzelak
Partner
Małgorzata Grzelak heads the Warsaw Labor & Employment team. Małgorzata’s practice focuses on labor, employment and immigration law, as well as related compliance, corporate and commercial issues. She advises clients in the commercial and manufacturing sectors, with a particular focus on technology, shared services centers and healthcare companies. Client feedback within The Legal 500 EMEA 2024 confirms her great understanding of their needs. She is described as “commercial, pragmatic and easily able to translate concepts to the business”.
Małgorzata focuses on top executives’ contracts, (re)structuring of labour and employment relations, implementing global and local rules and policies, immigration, employee transfers, secondments, compliance & investigations, and various corporate and contract law issues related to having employees in Poland. Małgorzata also advises clients on various aspects of occupational safety and workplace health. She counsels both local and international companies conducting business in Poland.
Compliance work forms a significant part of Małgorzata’s practice. She advises clients on the increasingly important data protection aspects of employment relations and on internal investigations processes, including bullying, harassment or white collar crime. In addition, her practice focuses on the protection of employers’ interests, including restrictive covenants and unfair competition actions. Małgorzata also advises clients on various aspects of occupational safety and health regulations.
She has served as counsel in numerous merger and acquisition transactions and restructuring processes, particularly focusing on employee takeovers and the legal aspects of remuneration systems and labour organisations.
She also advises on closing operations in Poland, including mass redundancies.
In 2022, Małgorzata launched the HR Space podcast series, where she discusses the recent Polish employment law developments helping clients deal with the many changes that the legal environment has seen happening in 2023. She also actively participates in global Labour & Employment Practice Group initiatives, sharing knowledge and providing thought leadership, which may be found at Global Knowledge Hub. In recent years, she was engaged in the COVID-19 response actions, as well as in assistance to both employers and employees amid the war in Ukraine.
Małgorzata has been continuously recommended for her employment work in The Legal 500 EMEA. Most recently, she has been recommended in The Legal 500 EMEA 2024 for Poland – Employment as a Leading Individual.
- Advising on the employment aspects of the acquisition by a global supply chain technology and solution services provider of a leading freight and logistics provider in Poland in one of the top private equity transactions of 2022, including on agreements with key executives.
- Advising a leading European automotive manufacturer on all employment law issues related to the sale of its business unit to another international corporation in 2022. Our counselling included complex employment law planning and execution in Poland and coordination with the international transaction team, counselling on complex employee transfer issues, including trade unions/works council relations, employee communications, relations with third-party service providers, agency workers and outsourcing relationships transfer, as well as immigration law advise pertaining to foreign workers employed at the transferring business.
- Advising a digital marketing company on its response to the war in Ukraine and in setting up its business presence in Poland, hiring Polish and foreign nationals, as well as immigration aspects of Polish operations.
- Assisting a global fintech leader in various matters related to its Polish workforce, including in the implementation of the most recent legislative changes concerning remote work arrangements in Poland.
- Assisting a leading pharmaceutical industry player on an international spinoff project of a specialised health business across a number of jurisdictions in Europe. The spinoff involved mass employee transfers between the companies and industrial relations planning for eight jurisdictions.
- Representing a transportation industry client before state labour inspection in the health and safety investigation process related to a fatal accident at work, and legal counselling in other related proceedings.
- Advising a technology sector client on defining the terms and methods of compensating its IT professionals after changes to the tax regulations applicable in Poland from 2022, and ensuring compliance with the legal changes brought to Polish employers in 2023.
- Assisting a telecommunications client in various matters pertaining to its employees, including advice on work from home policies, both locally in Poland and those in effect worldwide. We have also counselled on recruitment/dismissal and performance processes in Poland, including in commercially sensitive cases. We advised on diversity and inclusion initiatives, which top the agendas of international employers.
- Counselling a medical technology products company in the process of setting up a new business services centre in Poland and in adjusting its existing corporate structure to the new scope of operations; in structuring employment relations, internal policies, daily compliance matters, immigration, health and safety; recruitment, transfer of employees, and employee representation; and in engaging with the labour inspection and other authorities.
- Advising a leading global aerospace and defence industry technology provider in addressing the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the workforce in Poland, including various employment and subsidy measures offered by the Polish government.
- Counselling a motor vehicle parts manufacturer on the transfer of employees, unification and implementation of new collective labour law regulations (remuneration regulations, work regulations, social benefits fund regulations and business travel regulations), and various individual employee cases relating to recruitment, current staff dismissals, training and implementation of internal employee-related policies, including negotiations with suppliers of services for employees.
- Counselling an India-based software services and consulting company on structuring labour and employment relations in its Poland office, hiring and dismissals, introduction of local policies and localising of global policies, as well as providing legal counsel on immigration issues pertaining to non-EU citizens.
- Advising a group of furniture producers on labour and employment law issues during the employers’ merger and transfers of employees from different employers, on the collective bargaining agreements, on the remuneration systems, work rules, employee benefits fund, agreements and understandings with trade unions with respect to their rights guaranteed under the Trade Union Act, understandings concluded under the anti-crisis regulations, dismissals, mass redundancies, agreements for executives and on other selected aspects of labour and employment law.
- Advising an international chemicals company on labour and employment law issues related to establishing a shared services centre in Poland, including hiring employees, works council arrangements, setting up internal policies/procedures and various individual employment matters.
- Assisting numerous clients from production, entertainment, commercial, energy and other sectors in investigating alleged workplace malpractices, noncompliance or harassment allegations; providing legal counsel in the internal investigation processes related to frauds, funds embezzlements, bullying, sexual harassment and other grievances raised by the employees.
- Advising several foreign companies in hiring their employees or contractors in Poland through various foreign companies and in the process of setting up their business presence in Poland. Localising common law employment/services contracts for Poland-based employees. Counselling on social security registrations related to employment by foreign entities. Advising on immigration-related matters pertaining to employment of foreigners in Poland.
- Advising private investors on numerous mergers and acquisitions projects, involving transfers of permanent and temporary workforce and post-transfer harmonisation of compensation and benefits.
Education
- University of Lodz, J.D., 1999
- Universitá degli Studi di Reggio Calabria, 1997
Admissions
- Warsaw Bar Association, 2003
Languages
- English
- Italian
- Polish
- Ranked among Leading Individuals in The Legal 500 EMEA 2024 in the Employment category. Client feedback confirms her great understanding of their needs, and she is described as “commercial, pragmatic and easily able to translate concepts to the business.” She is also praised for being “highly responsive and capable of providing advice on a variety of legal issues”.
- Recognised in The Legal 500 EMEA for 2022-2023 Poland – Employment as Leading Individual
- Recognised in The Legal 500 EMEA 2021 for Poland – Employment as “very professional” and “extremely responsive”
- Recognised in Chambers Europe 2019 for Poland – Employment as Up and Coming, and mentioned as having “strong business acumen” and not using “the legalese that is difficult to somebody who is not a lawyer”
- Recommended for employment in The Legal 500 EMEA 2018 as “commercially minded and responsive”, providing “practical and reliable” advice
- Recommended for employment in The Legal 500 EMEA 2017 and noted as “extremely professional and client-oriented”
- Recognised as an Up and Coming lawyer for Employment in Chambers Europe 2017 as “very thorough and anticipates clients’ concerns” and “business-oriented, very communicative and friendly”