Peter M. Polak
Senior Partner, Polak & Partners Rechtsanwälte
Peter is a Vienna in Austria based attorney at law. He is a founding partner of Polak & Partners, a well recognized business law firm in Vienna/Austria, which services a wide range of international clients in all relevant areas of business law and specialises in Art law, being the premier Vienna law firm on that field. Additionally is well versed in arbitration, he has served both as party counsel and as arbitrator in more than 50 international arbitrations, including ICC, ICSID, Austrian Chamber of Commerce and now CAFA.
A corporate and M&A lawyer originally , after twenty years of transactional work, Peter gradually moved to art law, in which he began to specialize as his own art collection grew. Today he advises museums, artist estates, galleries , auction houses , collectors, financiers, heads of state and public institutions in all areas of art law. His practice in the area of art includes in particular authentication matters, restitutions, litigation, financing, copyright, contractual issues , art foundations, artist estates, administrative law, export permits and estate planning .
He has widely published in art law, including on restitution matters (The Golden Lady) and on export control law (IBA publication). He is the Past Chairman of the International Bar Association (IBA) Art & Heritage Law Committee and a board member of the mumok Museum of Modern Art (Vienna).
A graduate of Vienna Law School (1982) and Berkeley/California Law School (1985) , Peter has lectured at Webster University, St Louis and is a frequent speaker on art matters , on which he has lectured all over Europe, in Australia, Japan, the United States, Argentina and Israel. Peter is qualified as a lawyer in California/USA and Austria. He is fluent in German, English and French and reads Spanish and Italian. He is also a certified translator for the English language.
Jurisdiction: Austria and U.S.A.