Journal of Business Law 06/2023

The execution of infrastructural projects necessary for the implementation of housing investments by local government units (LGUs) may be co-financed from the Subsidy Fund administered by Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego. Several changes to the legislation, initiated from 1 April 2021, are intended to create conditions for intensifying the activities of local government units in the area of municipal housing construction. One of the used support instruments is to co-finance part of the costs of technical and social infrastructure related to housing construction. The aim of the article is to analyze and evaluate the legal regulations defining the legal status and the rules for providing such support. The established lack of specific results from the two-year period of application of the provisions of the amended Act on financial support for certain housing projects justified the negative verification of the hypothesis about the useful impact of the new legal regulations on the increased interest in local government units' execution of infrastructural projects that accompanied housing investments. The study uses the dogmatic and legal method, supplemented by an analysis of the achievements of the doctrine and jurisprudence, as well as announcements of BGK on the support provided from the Subsidy Fund.

This article opens a series of articles on the need to separate under Polish commercial and company law the law of family enterprises and family companies, as it is postulated in the German and Austrian corporate law doctrine. This article draws attention to the economic importance of enterprises and family companies in Poland, Germany and Austria, discusses the state of recognition of this issue in German, Austrian and Polish doctrine, and presents two basic definitional approaches to the issue of enterprises and family companies: the notion of an enterprise and a family company in a broad and in the strict sense. The confrontation of these two definitions of an enterprise and a family company leads to the conclusion that for understanding, analyzing and exploring the issues of family companies, the concept of a family company in the strict sense is essential and authoritative, which refers to the essence of family companies and the subjective element constituting them, which is the will of the founder/founders of a family business to run and continue the company for the next generations as a family business in a way that ensures its independence and multi-generational durability.

The article analyzes the amendment to the Polish Commercial Code, which allegedly introduces the concept of business judgment rule to the Polish legal system. In the author's opinion, the amendment raises several reservations because the new regulations still do not introduce the presumption of lack of directors' fault. Therefore, the amendment does not create a safe harbor for directors who still have to defend themselves against the accusation that they did not act diligently and in the company's interest. In addition, the amendment may erroneously cause directors to seek advisors' opinions that cover every business decision. Finally, the amendment does not resolve an important issue related to the functioning of the concept of business judgment rule in the event of a conflict of interest.

The purpose of this article is to determine to what extent contract law can be used by the legislator as an instrument to support environmental protection. As a part of civil law, contract law – as a rule – only regulates the rights and obligations of the parties to a legal relationship. However, there is a tendency to use civil law (including contract law) instrumentally for the realisation of public values. The author points to existing contract law norms that may have an impact on the state of the environment. Consumer contract law provides the most examples in this respect. Especially in recent years, consumer protection acts issued by the European Union have taken greater account of the need to support sustainable consumption and environmental protection. This includes the regulation of seller's liability for non-conformity of goods, the placing of information obligations on traders relating to the environmental aspects of the goods and services offered, and the promotion of sustainable transport by enhancing passenger rights and thus promoting collective transport. To a lesser extent, the idea of promoting environmental protection is taken into account in non-consumer contract law. In business dealings, however, there is a noticeable practice of including so-called green clauses in the content of contracts to make the performance of the contract as environmentally friendly as possible.

The judicature of the administrative courts shows a lack of uniformity in assessing the admissibility of lodging of the appeal to the administrative court on the resolution of the commune council on holding a referendum on the dismissal of the commune head (mayor, president of the city) by the person holding the office of the executive body of the commune. For a long time, the dominating position was in favour of the admissibility of a complaint in such cases, due to the provision of judicial protection to the commune head (mayor, president of the city) in a case aimed at examining the legality of an act of a commune body. However, a different view was expressed e.g. in the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of October 19, 2022, ref. act III OSK 1560/22. According to the glossator, this view deserves full approval, because in the case of these resolutions, it is impossible to speak of a violation of a legal interest (entitlement), on which the legislator based the effective lodging of the appeal to the administrative court.