| In Principle

New obligations to provide information to the financial regulator, mandatory internal control systems, and new administrative fines against agents and members of their authorities—the “vegetable patch” introduced quite a few changes.

The rulings of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal likening the President’s pardon power to a royal whim are wrong. In former monarchies, the king was deemed the “fountainhead of justice,” and thus could be said to have unbridled licence to interfere in its administration. In a modern state, the President does not play such a role, and in a democracy sources of justice are sought elsewhere. Therefore, the President’s pardon power cannot be understood so anachronistically.

During the American Civil War, the leaders of the Confederacy rejected the US Constitution and the legitimate authority of the United States, and for four years exercised their own dominion over the South. When the rebellion was finally put down, US courts had to recognise that under the US Constitution and the Union’s understanding of it, the rebellion was illegal and the rebel leaders had no legal basis for participating in it. Using the terminology fashionable in Poland today, we could call these persons “neo-officials.”

Disputes over access to public information are increasingly finding their way onto the court docket in Poland. Higher public awareness and a desire for citizen oversight of issues of particular public interest may be the reason. But administrative authorities or other entities obliged to provide information, whose decisions are subject to further review, often refuse to provide the requested information. What is public information, how to obtain it, and what to do when access is denied?

The European Commission has published a proposal for a directive to implement the BEFIT concept (short for “Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation”). The new law would allow the creation of standardised rules for calculating taxable income for purposes of corporate income tax. Taxpayers belonging to a BEFIT group will be taxed in the country of their residence, but only with respect to a portion of the tax result determined for the entire group.

As of 1 January 2024, the EU thresholds for public procurement and the average euro exchange rate for converting threshold amounts from euros into Polish zlotys have changed.

The environment is a key element of real estate development and construction, and has a major impact on the duration of the process. In 2023, there was increased legislative activity in this area, but we will not know its real impact on the construction process until 2024.

As of 16 October 2023, as an investor, the Polish State Treasury no longer has a statutory obligation to provide payment guarantees under Civil Code Art. 6491 §1. This lack of security for contractors can be expected to cause new problems in public procurement.

Under the Polish Restructuring Law, in principle an arrangement covers all claims against the debtor except for those expressly identified in the law as outside the arrangement. But sometimes it is not necessary to reach an agreement on all the debtor’s obligations in order to carry out an effective restructuring. This happens when the debtor only has difficulty servicing selected obligations that are otherwise essential to operation of its business. For such situations, parliament introduced the institution of a partial arrangement.

To our readers and authors, our wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We will return in 2024.

Since 2017, Poland’s competition authority has initiated dozens of proceedings for practices unfairly exploiting contractual advantage. As a result, nearly 20 decisions have already been issued, and many notices have been issued to companies. The fines alone have amounted to some PLN 1.1 billion (although appeals against some decisions are pending). To date, the largest fine for unfair exploitation of contractual advantage is over PLN 723 million (assessed against Jerónimo Martins Polska SA in 2020). What practices is the regulator seeking to identify and punish?

Submissions are open for the first edition of the Jerzy Wiszniewski Foundation’s competition for an outstanding scholarly work on trademark, competition or antitrust law.