most interesting rulings | In Principle

The award of multiple hypothetical royalties provided for in Poland’s Copyright Act is the subject of numerous debates and various rulings by the Constitutional Tribunal and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The European Court of Human Rights has held that an NGO operating an online blog cannot be held liable for comments posted by internet users because the organisation quickly deleted the offending posts. Meanwhile, the Warsaw Court of Appeal has held the publisher of a news site liable even though it was not notified of the unlawfulness of comments before being sued. These new rulings provide an occasion for sharing a few remarks about online defamation.

The issue of determining when the appointment of a member of the supervisory board of a joint-stock company ends in connection with the expiration of the term of office has been the subject of doubts and disputes for some time. It was particularly problematic to determine when the appointment ends when the term of office does not coincide with the financial year. The Supreme Court of Poland recently addressed this issue.

Poland’s National Appeal Chamber (KIO) issued an order on 5 September 2016 of great practical significance, applying new procurement rules on the permissibility of appeals by contractors interested in bidding for public contracts below the EU thresholds.

Based on a recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the provisions of the Polish Public Procurement Law permitting reliance on third-party capacity to demonstrate fulfilment of selection criteria are consistent with EU law.

To charge an employer with paying social insurance contributions on the income of its employees earned under non-employment contracts with a third party, it is not enough to determine that the effects of the work benefit the employer’s overall corporate group.

The same requirements for nutrition claims and health claims prevail in communications targeted to specialists as in messages aimed at consumers. Consumer protection is the overriding priority.

Exclusion of the possibility of terminating a licence, although debated by legal commentators, had not been ruled on by the Polish courts until recently. But now a judgment has been issued by the court of appeal inferring from the writings and behaviour of the parties that they concluded a non-exclusive licence agreement for an indefinite period without the possibility of terminating the licence.

In a judgment issued on 9 June 2016, the Court of Justice ruled on the factors that should be considering when determining the extent of damage and the amount of reasonable compensation for IP infringement. The ruling was issued under Council Regulation (EC) 2100/94 on Community plant variety rights.

The proposed amendment of the Public Procurement Law, despite introducing certain changes in the rules for participation by third parties in performance of public contracts, does not resolve all doubts concerning the existing practice. For some of them, it would be helpful to consult the guidelines from a recent judgment of the Court of Justice.

A holder of intellectual property rights that have been infringed may demand damages for non-economic loss even when the holder also seeks damages on the basis of hypothetical royalties.

In the EU system of antitrust law, the European Commission and the member states are autonomous in their application of leniency programmes. The soft harmonisation via the European Competition Network’s Model Leniency Programme is not binding on national competition authorities.