REPORT: Polish-Swiss Forum on Private Law

On 26 March 2024, a nationwide academic conference "Polish-Swiss Forum on Private Law" was held, organised by the Department of Civil Law of the Faculty of Civil Law of the University of Gdańsk in cooperation with the European Law Institute - Polish Hub.  The event was held under the patronage of the Rector of the University of Gdansk and the Swiss Ambassador to Poland.

The conference was officially opened by Assoc. Prof. Marcin Michał Wiszowaty, PhD (Deputy Dean for International Cooperation and Development) and His Excellency Fabrice Filliez, Ambassador of the Swiss Confederation in Poland. Prof. Dr. habil. Ewa Bagińska (Head of the Department of Civil Law) presented introductory remarks and welcomed the numerous participants to the event. The first panel was devoted to the topic of Swiss legal tradition. It discussed issues such as the challenges of interpreting legal texts published in three equivalent language versions (Prof. Pascal Pichonnaz - President of the European Law Institute / University of Freiburg) and provided a historical overview of the Swiss Civil Code and the Swiss Code of Obligations (Bénédict Winiger - University of Geneva).

The topic of the second panel was the law of contractual obligations. During the debate, a broad spectrum of issues was raised, such as the impact of regulations adopted in Swiss law on the provisions of the Polish Civil Code and the Code of Obligations (Prof. Piotr Machnikowski - University of Wrocław) or the issue of obligatory civil liability insurance in Poland and in Switzerland from a comparative legal perspective (Dr Michał P. Ziemiak - Nicolaus Copernicus University). Interesting issues which were the subject of the debates became the topics of a lively discussion, which continued also during the backstage talks.

The third panel of the conference was devoted to torts and damages law. Analysing the regulations of the Code of Obligations and the Civil Code, Prof. Ewa Bagińska (University of Gdańsk) presented the seven most important legal inspirations drawn from Swiss contract law into the Polish legal system. The second panellist, Dr Katarzyna Krupa-Lipińska (Nicolaus Copernicus University), presented the conference participants with an insightful and extremely interesting analysis of the theory of causality. The panel concluded with a presentation by Dr Mariusz Zelka (Adam Mickiewicz University).

The culmination of the event was a panel on property law, which presented such issues as the (non-) accessory nature of mortgages in Polish and Swiss law (Dr Bartłomiej Swaczyna - Jagiellonian University) or the similarities and differences between the Polish and Swiss models of regulating family foundations (Dr Kacper Górniak - Jagiellonian University).

Both the broad spectrum of issues raised in the speeches of the speakers and the numerous questions and lively discussion after the end of each panel indicate that the event proved to be an excellent space for discussion and a source of inspiration for further scientific deliberations on the interplay between Polish and Swiss legal culture.