Journal of Business Law 06/2021

In the Polish Public Procurement Law, the role of a contracting authority is focused on the preparation to the process of a public contract award. However, it is difficult to approve of the thesis according to which the role of a contracting authority is limited solely to the application of the provisions of the Public Procurement Law. There is no legal analysis to confirm how important the participation of a contracting authority is in the investment planning and cooperation at every stage of the investment. The technological process of the public contract performance void of activities undertaken by a contracting authority may end as a failure, either economical, qualitative or even legal.

One of the basic assumptions of the amendment to the Code of Civil Procedure from 4.07.2019 is to counteract the parties' abuse of procedural law, so making the rights provided for in the provisions of use incompatible with the purpose for which they were established (Article 41 of the Code of Civil Procedure). The legislator significantly expanded the scope of the sanctions, which can be applied by the court in the event of abuse of procedural law by a party. The legislator rightly considered that disloyal and dishonest behavior of a party, especially those affecting the unjustified extension of proceedings, should be incriminated in a much broader scope than before. Although the introduction of new trial measures aimed at implementing the principles of loyalty in civil proceedings should be assessed positively, their structure raises serious doubts from the theoretical and practical point of view. The aim of the article is to present the practical aspects of applying the measures provided for in Art. 226² § 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The provisions of the Tax Ordinance make use of the tax matter notion quite often, but in several different meanings. One of them was used by the legislator while indicating the scope of authorization for general and specific powers of attorney in the provisions, which came into force on 1 January, 2016. The term of tax matter appeared, among others, in Article 138e of Tax Ordinance, according to which the special power of attorney authorizes to act in the specified tax case or other case, belonging to the jurisdiction of the same tax authority. The functioning of the provisions on special power of attorney and the lack of a legal definition of the tax case, within which the attorney operates, revealed a number of interpretation doubts of this term in practice. The aim of this article — due to the ongoing judicial discussions — is to determine how to understand this term? Does the term "tax matter" used by legislator in the context of Article 138e § 1 of the Tax Ordinance mean the case in the material or procedural meaning? In other words, within the meaning of that provision, does a tax matter arise only at the very moment of initiating tax proceedings or does it exist earlier, regardless of the procedural aspect?

Vindicatory record was introduced into the Polish legal system as part of the amendment to the Civil Code introduced by the Act of March 18, 2011. The provisions of Article 9811–9816 of the Civil Code have been in force from October 23, 2011. As of January 1, 2020, the catalog of the testator's property that may be the subject of a vindicatory legacy has been extended. According to the added to art. 9811 § 2 of the Civil Code point 5, the subject of the vindicatory record may be the body of the rights and obligations of a partner in a partnership. The mere extension of the enumerative catalog contained in Art. 9811 § 2 of the Civil Code however, does not resolve the controversy related to the structure of the vindicatory record of the body of the rights and obligations of a partner in a partnership, but raises new doubts as to the juridical shape and application of this institution in partnerships. The purpose of this article is to identify these problems and to make attempt to solve them.

The new directive of the European Parliament and Council on the protection of persons reporting cases of violation of the European Union law (whistleblowing) introduces new principles of whistleblower protection in enterprises, homogenous in the entire European Union. This forces many changes in the national law. Legal protection of whistleblowers based on the Act on Liability of Collective Entities should be considered as one of the basic areas of activity aimed at ensuring protection against corruption and other unfavourable phenomena of the kind in enterprises. The draft Act on collective liability is to replace the virtually dead solutions of the current Act of 28 October 2002 with the same title. For this purpose, it is necessary that the legal terms of "whistleblowing" and "whistleblower", contained in the draft of the Act on liability of collective entities for offences under the regulation of the European Union, be specified more clearly in the Polish law. Answering the question of whether the new draft of the national law meets the norms set out by the legislation of the European Union for the Member States is paramount. The main objective of the article is therefore to assess the legal solutions regarding whistleblowing in a company contained in the draft act on the liability of collective entities for criminal acts and the protection of whistleblower under the new EU directive 1937/2019.

The purpose of this article was an attempt to identify normative regulations defining the principles of determining and imposing financial corrections in in the financial perspective 2014–2020 examining the rules for verifying the correctness of awarding contracts involving public funds by beneficiaries implementing projects cofinanced from structural funds and the application of financial corrections based on the example of the Regional Operational Programme for Podlaskie Voivodship 2014–2020. Beneficiaries implementing projects co-financed from the EU budget are subject to a special regime for applying the public procurement law. Its source is both the provisions of EU and national law, and the guidelines of the minister responsible for development, which are not a source of universally applicable law. The legal situation shaped in this way results in a high percentage of public procurement procedures carried out by beneficiaries which are questioned by competent institutions by way of control. A drawback from the point of view of the protection of the rights of beneficiaries is excessive normative complexity of the return procedure applicable also to the implementation system of ROPPV 2014–2020. This procedure is composed of two stages, i.e. determining and imposing financial corrections (with the exclusion of the provisions of the Code of Administrative Procedure), and then the appropriate administrative procedure for the return of funds. However, the possibility provided in national law to measure the amount of financial corrections depending on the nature and seriousness of individual irregularities should be assessed positively.

This paper pertains to the debatable issue of the functioning of limited company bodies after a bankruptcy order. It states that the further existence of the management board or the general meeting as bodies still having their competencies as well as influence on the company despite its bankruptcy, is necessary. As far as supervisory bodies are concerned, it was concluded that their further existence is not necessary, as their fundamental duties are performed by the judge-commissioner and the creditors of the bankrupt being a limited company. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the role of each limited company body evolves after the bankruptcy order, and in particular what the responsibilities of those bodies are and how they can be realised.

By the decision of 20 March 2020, the Minister of Climate and Environment of Poland extended, until 2026, the license granted in 1994 for lignite mining from the Turów deposit, located in the area adjacent to the Czech Republic. In the opinion of the claimant, the said decision was issued in breach of the requirements of European law regarding environmental impact assessments, and the extraction of the mineral from this deposit (that started over 100 years ago) will cause the lowering of water level on the adjacent Czech territory. By an order of 21 May 2021 the Vicepresident of the Court of Justice of the European Union ordered the Republic of Poland the immediate suspension of mining of lignite from the aforementioned deposit, until the judgment concluding the case will be announced. The legitimacy of this decision is questionable for many reasons. First, the mining of the aforementioned mineral is not carried out by the Republic of Poland, but by an entrepreneur, who is a commercial company. Secondly, the immediate suspension of the mining will not stop the drainage process (and thus damage or the threat of its occurrence) on the Czech territory. Thirdly, the order to cease mining may be complied only with the requirements of Polish law, which requires taking appropriate decisions, in particular regarding the approval of a change in the mining plant operation plan. However, there is no legal basis for the implementation of the order described above. The circumstances of the dispute also justify the assessment that, in fact, it is of civil-law nature and concerns the liability of a Polish entrepreneur for damage caused (or likely to arise) in the territory of an adjacent state.