Journal of Business Law 01/2023

The subject of the article is the legal regulation of the statutory limitation of the time of entrepreneurial control, starting from the original normalization in the Law on Freedom of Economic Activity, and ending with the current wording in this regard of the Law on Entrepreneurs. The author points out the motives for shaping the solutions adopted over time, the evolution of the approach to the issue of limiting the time of entrepreneurial control and the effects of the changes undertaken. He also highlights the discrepancy between the formal terminology of the laws and the solutions adopted in them. Since the issue of the entrepreneur's control time limit remains in close connection with other solutions in the field of control proceedings, the author also refers to exceptions to inspection time limits, the legal exceeding of statutory limits, the extension of control time, and the key concept of "working day" when determining the control time limit, also drawing attention to potential difficulties in the practice of application and interpretation of the regulations.

Improving air quality is an important goal for every country. For this purpose, various instruments can be used to support investors implementing ecological projects. In Poland, the catalog of such instruments was supplemented with the Ecological Surety and Guarantee Fund, established by law and entrusted to service by Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego from 1.01.2021. It provides sureties and guarantees for the repayment of loans granted by commercial banks for ecological investments for the purpose of limiting the negative effects of emissions from heating systems used in single-family houses. The aim of this article is to analyze and evaluate the legal regulations defining the legal position and principles of operation of the Ecological Surety and Guarantee Fund. It has been shown that the fund enables the parallel use of private and public law instruments for supporting environmental investments. At the same time, activities of some units of the public finance sector, banks and government administration bodies are integrated around these projects. The Fund may constitute a significant supplement to the activities of a systemic nature aimed at more effective implementation of the Government Program "Clean Air". The effects obtained in the first year of operation of this fund are very modest, but the causes for this situation do not have to be solely related to the applicable legal regulations. The very unfavorable market situation, including high inflation, an increase in loan servicing costs and current expenses burdening households may be related to little interest in the banks' offer in terms of loans for environmental investments. As a result, the resources of the fund dedicated to securing the return of such loans in the form of sureties and guarantees cannot be fully used.

The article deals with analysis of Art. 129 of the Polish Insolvency Law regulating ineffectiveness towards the insolvency estate – in circumstances defined therein – of the remuneration of a manager or member of a supervisory board of the insolvent debt. Article claims, among others, that Art. 129 of the Insolvency Law, different than Art. 185.4 of the Insolvency Law, concerns only remuneration awarded prior to insolvency, whereas Art. 129.1 first sentence of the Insolvency Law such remuneration for the period prior to declaration of insolvency, while Art. 129.1 second sentence of the Insolvency Law such remuneration for the period following declaration of insolvency (although awarded prior to declaration of insolvency). The purpose of Art. 129 of the Insolvency Law is not to sanction actions detrimental to the insolvency estate, but to ensure economic consequences of insolvency are shared in a just way and therefore shared also by very important stakeholders that are nowadays managers and members of the supervisory bodies of the insolvent debtor. This interpretation heavily impacts on solving a number of interpretation issues posed by the wording of Art. 129 of the Insolvency Law.

The subject of the article is the analysis of the draft provisions aimed at transposing into Polish law the Directive (EU) of the European Parliament and of the Council 2019/1 in the field of leniency programs. The aim of the publication is, firstly, to determine whether and if so, to what extent, the enactment of provisions as proposed in the draft act amending the Act on competition and consumer protection and certain other acts of 6 September 2021, may strengthen the leniency program in Poland. Secondly, the article presents a critical analysis of the proposed regulations aimed at determining whether, if adopted, this directive will be transposed correctly.

The purpose of this study was to present the results of research on the provisions of the Act on the principles of implementing tasks financed from European funds in the 2021–2027 financial perspective in the scope of the appeal procedure against negative project evaluation. The aforementioned legal regulation should be assessed critically as the applicant has a very weak position in the appeal procedure. Applicants applying for support from EU sources in a non-competitive procedure are excluded from the possibility of re-verification of the instance evaluation of their projects, which may be perceived as inconsistent with Art. 78 of the Polish Constitution. Moreover, limiting the applicants' right to lodge a protest in a competitive procedure by the fact that launching the appeal procedure does not suspend concluding co-financing agreements with applicants whose projects have been selected for co-financing, results in depriving the real possibility of re-verifying the evaluation of some projects. In addition, the scope of administrative court control limited by the legislator to verification of the legality of the negative assessment of the project raises doubts as to its compliance with the requirement of effectiveness of the appeal measure specified in Art. 13 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and Art. 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

In the judgment in case C-490/20 of 14.12.2021 r. V.M.A. v. Stolichna, "Pancharevo", the Court of Justice ruled that EU member states are obliged to recognize – for the purposes of EU free movement law – family ties established in another EU member state between a child and his or her same-sex parents. The V.M.A. ruling can be seen as a first step toward full recognition of rainbow families in Europe. However, due to the lack of clarification by the Court of a number of key concepts in this area, such as the scope of the principle of recognition or the scope of rights under Art. 21 TFEU, the judgment does not solve many important problems, and therefore its practical application may cause difficulties.