| In Principle

10 December 2022 marked forty years since the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which culminated years of negotiations within the United Nations, was opened for signature. With rapidly changing geopolitical conditions, the development of technologies enabling the extraction of minerals from the seabed, the climate crisis, and the disappearance of biodiversity, the convention must meet the demands of the next decades of the 21st century.

Marta Kacprowska, attorney-at-law in Wardyński & Partners’ Private Clients practice, talks about inheritance of property left by deceased foreigners and how foreign heirs can inherit property in Poland.

An end to the mass discarding of packaging and waste. Instead, recycling, refillable packaging, a deposit on plastic bottles and limits on disposable bags. Such changes are proposed in a new draft regulation of the European Commission. The changes are to be implemented gradually.

The Commercial Companies Code contains rules facilitating mergers of companies where there are few owners and little risk of harm to stakeholders, and thus the law allows certain provisions to be waived. But it is essential to apply the regulations properly so that the merger is carried out effectively and can be entered in the National Court Register.

Participation in a limited-liability company in Poland may end either as a result of acquisition of the shareholder’s shares by another entity or as a result of elimination of the shares, i.e. redemption. This mechanism is more and more common and used for various purposes in the course of M&A transactions consisting in the acquisition of only a portion of a company’s share capital. Then, it becomes an element of the shareholders’ agreement and thus of the articles of association which are to take effect and regulate the rights and obligations of the parties upon completion of the transaction.

The popularity of remote work and its various forms, including digital nomadism, is not waning. Unconstrained by national borders or the nationality of employees, employers taking advantage of the global labour market must take into account a number of legal aspects not present in traditional employment. These involve not only issues of supervision of work performance or compensating employees for out-of-office costs, but above all, issues such as the law applicable to the employment relationship and legalisation of the employee’s work and residence in the country of work.

The Polish government has announced that in place of WIBOR (the Warsaw Interbank Offered Rate) it will introduce a new benchmark index, promising lower values than WIBOR, which will reduce the loan repayment burden on borrowers. This new index, which will shortly be used also for calculating instalments on PLN loans taken out by businesses, will be described by Konrad Werner.

On the Polish energy market, the recent months will be remembered for many reasons. Historically high electricity and natural gas prices have forced changes to a number of established practices. During the crisis, several mechanisms have been created to mitigate its effects—primarily high utility prices. Among other things, a cap on the price of electricity sold to selected end users is being introduced. We now briefly examine whether the Act on Emergency Measures to Restrict Electricity Prices and Support Certain Consumers in 2023 is likely to live up to its name.

High energy prices are greatly impacting economies around the world. Recognising the state of crisis, the European Union is introducing a number of amendments to the law to mitigate the effects of high electricity prices. In Poland, support instruments are governed by the Electricity Price Act and are intended to benefit electricity end users such as households and SMEs. Thus for companies it is crucial to assess their own size.

Entities transferring personal data outside the European Economic Area on the basis of standard contractual clauses that are no longer in force (where the transfer began before 27 September 2021) should conclude agreements based on new clauses by 27 December 2022.

Along with a foundation and a non-profit company, a representative office of a foreign foundation is one of the legal forms through which charitable activities can be carried out in Poland. However, due to a sparsity of regulations, the functioning of representative offices of foundations in Polish law is not entirely clear. The topic is particularly timely, as with the outbreak of war in Ukraine many foreign foundations wanting to operate in Poland have voiced the need to open representative offices here. Previously, such outposts were relatively rare, as there was little need for them.

As of 29 June 2022, the rights and obligations under three types of decisions issued under the Public Roads Act can be transferred to another entity. These are decisions permitting the location or reconstruction of an exit from a public road; placement of devices and advertising in a right of way; or occupation of a right of way for purposes not related to construction, reconstruction, repair, maintenance or protection of roads.