Karol Rutkowski PhD has extensive experience in the field of the Polish securities law, banking law and procedural law (civil and penal). Having graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw in 1986, in 1988 he acquired prosecutor qualifications. In 1993, he became a legal counsel. Since 1996, he has been practicing as an attorney. In 2018 Karol Rutkowski PhD completed doctoral studies in the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is the author of a PhD thesis entitled: “Privatization of the state’s investigative function in the area of economic crime”.
He is also a member of the Center of International Legal Studies in Salzburg.
Karol Rutkowski PhD started his professional career as a prosecutor at the District Attorney’s Office, where he was in charge of prosecution of financial offences. Subsequently, he worked for Bank Gospodarki Żywnościowej as a legal counsel. Between 1993 and 1995, he held the position of the vice-president of Coopers & Lybrand in Warsaw. In the years 1995-2001, he was a partner and head of the litigation and capital market departments of CMS Cameron McKenna in Warsaw (partner in London since 1997). In 2001, he became an international partner of the Lovells law firm in Warsaw and head of its banking law, capital markets and litigation department. Mid-2003, he founded his own law firm, Karol Rutkowski Sp. k. (limited partnership).
Karol Rutkowski PhD provided advisory services to many banks and corporations, including world leading financial institutions. He has also experience in the scope of large international investments, litigation, privatization of companies with Polish and foreign capital, real estate market transactions and infrastructural projects.
He was charged with preparation of nine public stocks issue prospectuses and their submission to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the one related to privatization of one of the largest Polish commercial banks and two other banks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Moreover, he also supervised the work of teams of lawyers having prepared five legal analyses of leading Polish commercial banks. He also coordinated the work of a team of lawyers that separated Krajowy Depozyt Papierów Wartościowych from Giełda Papierów Wartościowych S.A. in Warsaw.
Karol Rutkowski PhD was also the head of the legal team that prepared the agreement founding the only bank group in Poland in the course of the Polish banking sector consolidation. He carried out the analysis of legal consequences of the said group’s constitution. Working for the largest Polish banks, he prepared a series of their internal documents and represented them in court and execution proceedings.
Karol Rutkowski PhD participated in elaboration of the acts on accounting, on statutory auditors and on organization and functioning of pension funds. He is the author of numerous publications and articles on dispute resolution, arbitration, banking and capital markets, having appeared in the Polish and international media. He lectures, conducts trainings and seminars on Compliance and Corporate Internal Investigation.
He has a fluent command of English.
During the seven years of his prosecutor’s career, Karol Rutkowski PhD conducted and controlled several hundreds of preparatory proceedings in cases of different character and gravity. In their course, he performed various procedural acts and commissioned related research, analyses and opinions to experts in different extrajudicial fields. In all the aforementioned cases, he was making key decisions setting further direction of proceedings and deciding whether they will be abandoned or an indictment will be brought before court. In several hundreds of cases, he also supported indictments before various courts. In their significant part, he brought and supported civil actions.
Having ended his career as a prosecutor, Karol Rutkowski PhD began providing services of legal assistance to business entities, first as a legal counsel and then as an attorney. From the very beginning, his practice in this field combined the elements of banking, capital markets and litigation. During over a dozen years, he acquired extensive knowledge, skills and experience in each of these areas.
The prosecutor, legal counsel and attorney stripes earned during his many years of work, broad knowledge and extensive experience as well as a set of specific professional skills predisposed him towards the function of the head of the capital markets and litigation departments of CMS Cameron McKenna Sp. z o.o. in the years 1995-2001, and banking, capital markets and litigation department of Lovell Sp. z o.o. in the years 2001-2003.
The establishment of Karol Rutkowski Sp. k. (limited partnership), specializing in provision of new on the Polish market, niche legal compliance services, was only natural in the course of development of his professional career.
Karol Rutkowski PhD is the first lawyer from the European continent to have become a partner in a London City law firm.
