[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the 7th of November 2013 the forth German-Polish Forum for Law and Economy was held at the University of Economics in Warsaw. The event was organized by the Viadrina Compliance Center, the University of Economics Warsaw, the Polish-German Chamber of Commerce and the Polish-German Lawyers' Association was organized. The Forum was devoted to the issues of tax compliance, compliance in world trade and the formation of a compliance culture in Poland; media patron was the publisher C.H. Beck. Honored guest of the conference was the President of the Constitutional Court Prof. Andrzej Rzepliński, who pointed out that the protection of law-abiding behavior of a company, in particular compliance, especially with regard to globalization, is one of the greatest challenges for legislators and legal practice. Compliance affects many areas of corporate activity and is also an interdisciplinary phenomenon. One of the key elements of compliance within the company is the implementation of an appropriate system to avoid tax risks that arise as a result of non-compliance or incorrect application of tax law norms (tax compliance). A particular challenge of tax compliance is the complexity of tax legislation and - in the case of cross-border business activities - the need for international elements to be considered, in particular agreements on avoidance of double taxation. As part of the national and international (PolishGerman) taxation of limited partnerships and partnerships limited by shares, Prof. Stephan Kudert by the European University Viadrina and Prof. Adriana Cloer PricewaterhouseCoopers in Prague devoted to this subject in a lecture.
The second panel of the forum focused on compliance issues in foreign trade. Prof. H.-Michael Wolffgang of the University of Münster, revealed the causes of the need for a new Foreign Exchange Act (Foreign Trade Act, the law came into force on 1st September 2013) and discussed the system introduced by this law.
In the last panel the experience of three compliance officers were presented: Tomasz Kruk, Marcin Szczepański and Karol Rajewski talked about the implementation of compliance programs in Polish companies: pharmaceutical industry (Grupa Actavis), services and trade (Siemens Polska) and financial sector (ING ).