| In Principle

“Phoenixing” is a term coined to describe a situation in which stakeholders of an organization which becomes insolvent transfer its operations to a different entity, which continues them while ignoring the predecessor’s debts.

Properly determining the amount of damages sought for loss of health, where a party pursuing a claim for injury partly caused the loss, can be a problem even for professional representatives of such claimants. This is because this issue raises a number of grave practical concerns, addressed by the Supreme Court in a resolution of 11 April 2019 (III CZP 105/18), and also by other bodies.

The condition of the Polish M&A market depends on many factors, such as the economic and political situation in the country and the legal and tax environment for businesses. But another significant element impacting the size and structure of investments in Poland is the legal restrictions on conducting transactions. They affect both share deals and asset deals.

Terms of reference should set contract performance deadlines that are possible to keep for completion of the contract and individual stages. It is better to specify these periods in years, months and days than as a specific date. However, if the contracting authority set specific dates which became impossible to meet after submission of the bids, it should modify them accordingly when signing the contract, reflecting the amount of time taken into account by contractors at the stage of submission of bids.

A party substitution in a contract concluded under the Public Procurement Law is possible if the contracting authority explicitly provided for the possibility of such a change in the contract announcement and specified the conditions for such a change. Whether a contractual provision authorising the contracting authority to entrust the performance of the contract to a third party (substitute performance) can be regarded as a review clause allowing for party substitution is an interesting issue in public procurement practice.

A new Corporate Liability Act which is currently before the Polish Sejm will put criminal law institutions in a new perspective. Certain instruments that were seen as appropriate only with respect to individuals will have to be redirected to be deployed in the case of corporate entities. Once the new laws take effect, corporate entities will be the focus of attention of law enforcement agencies. The new approach will affect among other things police entrapment operations (controlled handing over of a bribe), at the moment usually used with regard to businesspeople.

In a judgment of 6 March 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union gave its final ruling on a case surrounding invalidation of a community design presenting the box for MIK MAKI dragees. The invalidation was being sought by Ferrero SpA, claiming infringement of its registered figurative mark for Tic-Tac packaging.

W ostatnim czasie media wielokrotnie informowały o zatrzymaniach prezesów, członków zarządów, dyrektorów spółek. W przestrzeni publicznej pojawiał się wówczas szereg pytań o zasadność takich czynności, zwłaszcza wtedy, gdy sądy odmawiały uwzględniania prokuratorskich wniosków o zastosowanie tymczasowego aresztowania.

The investor is the host of a construction project and, in practice, it is the investor who decides on the wording of the agreement with the general contractor, including the contractor’s activity in execution of the project. It is the investor who decides how the construction process is organised. But investors have different preferences: they do not always want to precisely track the course of works, and that may not be feasible. Therefore, the agreement with the contractor should be tailored to the adopted model of cooperation and take into account the possible level of control by the investor of the general contractor’s activities.

A draft Act Amending the Waste Act and Certain Other Acts has been submitted to the Polish parliament. The proposal is designed to totally digitise the Database of Products, Packaging and Waste Management (known as the Waste Database or BDO). The proponents’ aim is also to expand the functionality of BDO so that it is also used by businesses to maintain their current waste records. This would allow the authorities to easily identify the generator and subsequent possessors of wastes.

If a contractor does not agree to extension of the binding period of its offer when requested by the contracting authority, the bid is rejected. However, the effects of expiration of the binding period are unclear when the contractor fails to extend the period at its own initiative. The current wording of the Public Procurement Law does not specify whether the contractor’s bid remains valid after the binding period expires.

There have been few transactions on the pharmacy market in Poland since 25 June 2017, when the amendment to the Pharmaceutical Law popularly known as “Pharmacies for Pharmacists” entered into force. The transactions that did occur carried significant regulatory risk. This situation may change due to a recent interpretation by the Ministry of Health. Will we witness a gradual departure from the restrictive limitations under the 2017 amendment?