Katarzyna is a Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law at the University of Glasgow since 2024. She is a Corporate and Financial Law Deputy Subject Head and LLM Corporate and Financial Law/Commercial Law Pathway Co-Director. Katarzyna is a member of the Corporate and Financial Law Research Group and the Just Transition Research Cluster at Glasgow. She is a Commercial Law Honorary Editor for the University of Glasgow Law Review.

Katarzyna was appointed to the position of Lecturer in Commercial Law in August 2018. She previously worked as a Visiting Lecturer and Tutor at the University of Edinburgh and a Research Associate, Visiting Lecturer and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Glasgow.

Katarzyna’s research concentrates on accountability of the board of directors, sustainable development and company law in comparative dimension more broadly. She also has research experience in financial law and financial markets.

Chałaczkiewicz-Ładna obtained her PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2016. Her doctoral research was comparative in nature, addressing the extent to which UK, German and Delaware law imposes obligations on directors to take into account the long-term consequences of their decisions. It is the first piece of research to provide illustrations of long-term managerial decision-making.

Katarzyna graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland in 2007 (combined LLB and Master’s Degree) and she studied for a year at the University of Bayreuth, Germany (Socrates-Erasmus Programme). She holds an LLM in Commercial Law from the University of Edinburgh (2008).

Katarzyna is a Visiting Lecturer at the Leuphana University (Lüneburg, Germany). She is also a reviewer of funding proposals/grant applications for the National Science Centre (Poland).

Research interests summary

• Company Law
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Comparative Law
• Commercial Law
• Empirical research

Katarzyna’s research projects include:

• Workforce engagement and participation in corporate decision-making (with Prof. Irene-Marie Esser and Prof. Iain MacNeil) – in this empirical project we evaluate the workforce engagement mechanisms introduced by Provision 5 of the UK Corporate Governance Code 2018. In Part 1 of the project, we view this development as a key stage in the evolution of the Code in terms of integrating stakeholder interests into board decision-making. We also focus here on the engagement mechanisms as a tool to ensure more sustainable companies. In Part 2 of the project, we continue to evaluate workforce engagement tools introduced by Provision 5, based on the new, 2020 data (the second year this provision is in force). However, this paper takes the analysis a step further by focusing on the engagement mechanisms as a tool to ensure more sustainable companies. Sustainability is a key topic in corporate and financial law.  In this context, the analysis is carried out to explore ways to ensure workforce engagement mechanisms result in actual engagement and participation rather than being merely implemented. This article concentrates on presenting arguments on how a well-developed workforce engagement framework could drive the transition towards more sustainable companies. 
• Directors’ duties in Poland (with Prof. Tomasz Sójka and Dr Jędrzej Jerzmanowski) – Poland is traditionally portrayed as a shareholder primacy jurisdiction – the legislation is silent on this, but it is confirmed by the Polish legal academia and the case law. Interestingly, the focus on shareholder value in Poland is not “transplanted” from the common law jurisdictions, but it is rather derived from the liberal model of the economic transformation that started in 1989 and crucially, the traditionally concentrated share ownership structure. Furthermore, in Poland, just like in the other former Eastern Bloc countries, companies that are fully or partially state-owned are still influential. The interest of such companies is in practice defined in a specific way, as apart from the projects that pay off economically, they have often engaged in ventures that bring rather political than economic gains. The aim of this article is to scrutinise the extent to which the perception of Poland as a shareholder primacy jurisdiction still stands; especially, in the context of recent sustainability-focused initiatives at the national and European level. This piece also suggests reform proposals as to how the current law on the corporate objective could be improved. This study concentrates on the public companies with shares listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, including the state-owned enterprises.

• A study on ‘Say on Pay’ regulation (with Dr Betty (H.T.) Wu and Prof. Iain MacNeil) - in this article we presented the results of the first longitudinal survey of the entire phase of ‘say on pay’ regulation in the UK to date. We examined the link between each stage of ‘say on pay’ regulation and the level and growth of directors’ remuneration. We concluded by linking our empirical evidence to broader developments in shareholder engagement with listed companies.

• Engaging stakeholders in corporate decision-making through strategic reporting (with Prof. Irene-Marie Esser and Prof. Iain MacNeil) – this two-part empirical project analysed the practical implications and relevance of the production of a strategic report for shareholders and especially other stakeholders in the UK (e.g. employees, customers, suppliers, environmental agencies). It evaluated whether the current regulatory framework on non-financial reporting in the UK informs stakeholders adequately so as to facilitate effective engagement in corporate decision-making.

Katarzyna’s most recent research project is designed to rethink the personal liability of executive directors as a factor in decision-making processes in the UK, Delaware and Germany. Together with Prof. MacNeil and Prof. Esser she is also working on an empirical project on corporate purpose.

List by: Type | Date

• Research stay at Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg, Germany, 3,000 € (2023)
• Academic Returners and Research Support Fund, University of Glasgow, College of Social Sciences, £9,953 (2021)
• REF Contingency Fund, University of Glasgow, College of Social Sciences, £2,250 (2019)
• Postgraduate Research Community Scheme Award, University of Edinburgh, study grant recognising contribution to the school’s academic community (2013/14)
• Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust Scholarship (2012/13 – 2013/14)
• Clark Foundation for Legal Education Scholarship (2011/12 – 2014/15)

Katarzyna is interested in supervising research students in company law, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility.

• Jakuczun, Sylwia
  “Unfair prejudice petitions in context: empirical research of unfair prejudice petitions as the most important statutory means of protecting minority shareholders in the jurisdictions of Scotland, England and Wales”
• Zhou, Shining
  Macroprudential Perspectives on Central Banks' Response to Systemic Risk in the Context of Climate Change

• Business Organisations
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Commercial Law
• Comparative Corporate Law
• Commercial Insurance
• Law and Sustainable Finance

Katarzyna is a member of:

• the Society of Legal Scholars, 
• the European Corporate Governance Institute,
• Allerhand Institute (an independent research centre, based in Kraków, Poland);
  Sustainable Market Actors Network;
• Daughters of Themis: International Network of Female Business Scholars. 

She provided consultancy services to Milieu Ltd in the field of compliance assessment, in relation to financial law Directives.

In 2014 and 2023 Katarzyna was on a scholarship at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany.

Her masters thesis: ‘Challenging the resolutions of the shareholders’ meeting in the Polish and German Public limited company’ received 2nd prize at the Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Adam Mickiewicz in 2008 and 1st prize for the best dissertation on company law, organised by the Polish Commercial Law Review Journal in 2008.

Katarzyna is part of the Corporate and Financial Law research group and the Just Transitions Research Cluster.