Journal of Business Law 01/2024

The catalog of instruments to support municipal housing construction has been supplemented since 1 December 2022, with bonuses and grants provided by the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego. The purpose of these new support instruments is to provide additional subsidies for projects aimed at improving the technical condition of the municipal housing stock (MZG). The qualification of applications for bonuses and grants is carried out using banking procedures, but support in these forms is nonrefundable. Public funds is the source of the subsidy provided. The purpose of the article is to analyze and evaluate the legal regulations on the granting of bonuses and grants by the BGK and to determine the legal nature of the instruments of support for investments carried out in the municipal housing resources. The hypothesis about the significant similarity of bonuses and grants to targeted grants was verified. Due to the statutorily defined order of application of various support instruments, it was shown that bonuses and grants are supplementary forms of financing projects carried out in the municipal housing resources. The first quantitative and value effects achieved so far in this regard can be the basis for very cautious assessments of the effectiveness of bonuses and grants in solving problems that have been accumulating in the area of municipal housing for many years.

The purpose of this article is to analyze possibility of acquisition of shares covered by a share register by goodfaith acquirer. Attention has been given also to claims, to which genuine owner is entitled, related to such an acquisition. The article permitted to prove, that under the current rules of the Polish law it is possible to acquire shares covered by a share register, despite fact that the transferee has no authority to transfer these shares. Dematerialization has not weakened the protection of the good-faith acquirer. The contrary view would be inconsistent with the assumption that legislator is rational.

Transactions based on smart contracts are becoming increasingly common, which will eventually lead to situations where it will be necessary to provide evidence from a smart contract in civil disputes. The aim of the article is to indicate how to conduct evidence with a smart contract and attempt to identify problems that the court will have to face. Due to the fact that the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure do not mention it among the specifically regulated means of evidence, there will be a need for its qualification. Undoubtedly, in the light of the definition from Article 77(3) of the Civil Code, a smart contract can be recognized as a document. However, in terms of procedural law, such evidence will have to be conducted based on Article 308 or Article 309 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The court conducting the evidentiary proceedings will have to specify the method of conducting evidence from a smart contract. This should be done by appropriately applying the provisions regulating evidence from a document or the provisions regulating evidence from an inspection. It seems that there is no need for another amendment of the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, and appropriate interpretation of existing provisions will suffice.

The institution of compulsory squeeze outs raises controversies both in the case of non-public companies and for public companies. The existing legislation allowed such a solution only for joint stock companies. The introduction of provisions related to group of companies allowed the possibility of squeezing out minority shareholders also in the case of a limited liability participating in a group of companies. This article discusses the squeeze out procedure in a limited liability company participating in a group of companies. It focuses on the elements specific to this process in relation to a limited liability company.

Money has existed in civilization for thousands years. The development of money has passed through various stages in accordance with time, place and circumstances and was linked to the growth in world trade and commerce. Next to cash came up non-cash payment transactions. In a dynamically changing environment, which is becoming increasingly digital, also financial area is undergoing transformations. One of its manifestations is progressive evolution of forms of noncash payments and emergence and intensive development of cryptocurrencies, based on blockchain technology. In recent years, an observed phenomenon is the work undertaken by central banks on the concept of issuing a new form of money – Central Bank Digital Currency. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) are a new, future form of money that can greatly increase the efficiency of payment and settlement systems in domestic and international financial markets. While CBDCs have to bring many benefits, there are also potential and real risks associated with them. One of them is the danger of complete loss of financial privacy for people making transactions using digital money.

In the commented judgment, the Supreme Administrative Court dealt with an issue of great practical importance, i.e. the crediting to the payer's arrears of a payment made by a perpetrator of a fiscal offence, who is not a taxpayer, in order to fulfil an obligation to pay a public duty, as determined by a criminal court judgment. This is also an issue of great theoretical importance, because the applicable provisions of Polish tax law do not provide expressis verbis for the expiration of the payer's obligation as a result of making such a payment in the amount exceeding PLN 1,000. The Supreme Administrative Court accepted the concept of deduction, but pointed out that the criminal court, alleging a fiscal offense and imposing the obligation to pay the imposts depleted by this prohibited act, should clearly specify to what extent the payment is to cover the principal and the interest. The gloss accepts the possibility of such a deduction, but strongly questions the concept of suggested additional components of a criminal court judgement.