About the Centre

The Centre for Family Business Law started its activities in 2024. It is a research unit at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw, Poland, established to analyse regulations concerning family businesses and legal instruments for the management and succession of such businesses.

The Centre is the only autonomous academic unit within a university law faculty structure in Poland specialising in family business law. Its embedding at the university and its lack of direct connection with law or tax offices guarantees, firstly, an academic and substantively in-depth research profile. Secondly, it ensures the independence and integrity of the research and its results due to the absence of conflicts of interest, as the Centre has no ‘clients’ of its own for which it might be interested in supporting specific substantive solutions.

Even before the formal establishment of the Centre, a team of academics specialising in family business law had already been formed and it was among them that the idea of the Centre was conceived. They have also launched a research project dedicated to private foundations, entitled “The Dead Hand. Private foundation as a multi-generational estate planning tool”, funded by the National Science Centre (grant no. 2021/41/B/HS5/00857). The activities undertaken within its framework are available online (www.privatefoundation.eu). Members of the Centre are also involved in an international project entitled “Enterprise Foundations in Europe”, run by the European Law Institute and dealing with companies in foundation ownership (both private and non-profit).