already in force | In Principle

An amendment to the Civil Procedure Code entered into force on 1 January 2016, raising the importance of mediation and significantly changing Poland’s mediation regulations. This will also affect the course of judicial proceedings commenced from that date forward.

Financial services are not always performed as they should be, and procedures for considering customer complaints have not always been effective. Consequently, in May 2015 the Polish Financial Supervision Authority adopted a resolution on consideration of customer complaints, and in August the Sejm adopted the Act on Consideration of Complaints by Financial Market Entities and on the Financial Ombudsman. The act has just entered into force.

On 1 July 2015, lawyers and parties to criminal proceedings in Poland entered a new reality. But will adversarial criminal trials truly unburden the courts and speed up the process?

The Act of 29 August 2014 Amending the Corporate Income Tax Act, the Personal Income Tax Act and Certain Other Acts went into force on 1 January 2015.

Amendments to Poland’s Corporate Income Tax (CIT) Act and Personal Income Tax (PIT) Act went into force at the beginning of 2015. One of the key changes is taxation of income earned by controlled foreign companies (CFC, in Polish: zagraniczne spółki kontrolowane).

The Act of 28 November 2014 Amending the Payment Services Act went into force on 29 January 2015. The act introduced major changes for all participants in the payment instruments market in Poland, including a statu¬tory reduction in interchange fees and addition¬al obligations for acquirers and payment card organisations.

Some of the provisions amending the Commercial Companies Code and other acts went into force on 15 January 2015, mainly concerning establishing and operation of a business in the form of a registered partnership, a limited partnership or a limited-liability company.

An amendment to the Competition and Consumer Protection Act went into force on 18 January 2015. The changes are sweeping.

The Regulation of the Minister of Justice of 7 October 2014 on Establishment of Certain District Courts came into force on 1 January 2015.

Numerous minor changes in civil procedure enter into force in Poland in January 2015, concerning such matters as submission of disputed items to the court deposit, the rights of non-parties, and certain aspects of competition cases.

Subcontractors for road projects in Poland may still seek payment from the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) under a special act of Parliament from 2012. A recent amendment to the special act allows subcontractors which are large enterprises to seek payment from GDDKiA under the same terms as SMEs.

With the entry into force of the amendment to the “special act” on 16 July 2014, large subcontractors will be able to seek payment from the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways of their unsatisfied principal claims for performance of public road construction projects.