Renewable Energy Sources Act Amendments in Poland – Additional Arrivals to Governmental Legislation Center in June, Continued

Things are gaining momentum. In our post of June 7, 2019, we wrote about the major changes to the draft Renewable Energy Sources Act (RES) posted on the government website on June 5. Not long thereafter, a new supplemented version 6 appeared. We believe one new development is worth our attention.

By Way of Introduction, Freezing Energy Prices in Poland in 2019

It is no secret that energy prices presented to entrepreneurs in Poland skyrocketed toward the end of 2018, and Parliament fast-tracked the law, “freezing” the prices for entrepreneurs for 2019. It may go without saying, but artificially affecting the energy sector in a free-market economy is futile for a very simple reason: the future reality check will be all the stronger. Continue Reading

Digital Constitution passes the first round in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic

By Karolina Karnikova on June 11, 2019 Posted in Digitalization, Electronic Communication

Recently, legislators in the Czech Republic made an important step towards strengthening the rights of natural and legal persons as “clients of public authorities” to the provision of services by public authorities in the form of digital services. The draft Act on the Right to Digital Services (“ARDS”), also called “Digital Constitution”, presents a revolutionary approach to communication with the public authorities, and has been greeted with great acclaim by the general public. Continue Reading

Draft Amendments to the Renewable Energy Sources Act in Poland announced on Governmental Legislation Center

By Igor Hanas and Rafał Pytko on June 7, 2019 Posted in Energy, Finance, Investments, Renewable

Mixed-race-man-checking-solar-panels

Under Pressure

On 5 June, the draft amendments to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (RES Act) were posted on the Governmental Legislation Center website. It is no secret that Poland will not meet the RES energy production level targets imposed by EU Directives, regardless of the means undertaken. Despite this, one positive is that the government is at least trying to make the investors’ lives (and project performance) easier, save some of the ready-to-go projects and make the gap as small as it can be. Many of the draft amendments are rational and desirable to the industry. As a result, the volumes for the upcoming 2019 auctions have already been increased significantly.

Employees go voting in CEE – what you need to know as HR professional

By Malgorzata Grzelak, Warsaw, Hana Gawlasová, Stanislav Ďurica and Jiří Chejn on May 23, 2019 Posted in Elections, Employment

EU Question Mark

Between 23 and 26 May 2019, more than 400 million European citizens will have the right to vote in the European Parliament elections. This is where the similarities between the CEE countries seem to end. Voters in the Czech Republic will be voting on 24 and 25 May 2019, in Slovak Republic on 25 May and, finally, in Poland on 26 May 2019, as elections in Poland are organized on a typically non-working day.

In the 2019 elections, voters in Poland will elect 51 Parliament members, voters in Czech Republic 21 and voters in Slovakia will elect 13 Parliament members. These numbers may increase if the UK leaves the EU.

So what do you need to know about the elections as an HR professional in CEE? We have rounded up the most common questions below. Continue Reading

Elections to the European Parliament – How Poland Counts the Votes

By Peter Swiecicki and Pawel Hoc on May 16, 2019 Posted in Elections, Public Advocacy

European Parliament

Poland’s voters head to the polls on 26 May in the elections for the European Parliament, with 51 seats at stake. Although the campaign is in full swing, an understanding of the rules for determining the winners is lacking. Whereas the rules in a simple “first past the post” election are quite easy to explain (and they provide a clear overview of the outcomes with regard to the elected candidates because the candidate in each district with the greatest number of votes wins), elections to the European Parliament are based on proportional voting mechanisms. Poland’s system is very complex. Two complex methods, called the D’Hondt method and the Hare–Niemeyer method, are applied in the second stage of tabulating votes. Unfortunately it is difficult to find any straightforward guide to the main principles. For instance, the State Election Commission provides all the data relevant to the election, but no helpful summaries of the election principles. Continue Reading

National Bank of Slovakia Launches Fintech Innovation Hub

By Silvia Belovičová on April 1, 2019 Posted in FinTech

On Friday 29 March 2019, the Economic University in Bratislava hosted the recurring session of the Center for Financial Innovations established by the Slovak Ministry of Finance. We participate in these sessions, along with other representatives of academics, banks and fintech companies. The focus of the event was a discussion related to the EU’s action plan for financial innovations, crowdfunding, venture funding for fintech SME’s and the regulatory approach to financial innovations. At the event, the representative of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), Júlia Čillíková, announced the long-awaited launch of the first Fintech Innovation Hub as of 1 April 2019.

PLN 1 Million Fine for GDPR Violation

By Magdalena Gad-Nowak on March 27, 2019 Posted in Data Protection

GDPR Warning Sign

On March 26, 2019, the Polish Data Protection regulator (Urząd Ochrony Danych Osobowych – UODO) announced the first administrative fine imposed on a Warsaw-based company for failure to meet the informational obligation toward the data subjects whose data it processed, in violation of article 14 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The fined company – which considers itself a European leader in the provision of data and analytics – uses advanced analysis and scoring models to predict clients’ behaviour and to assist companies in making business decisions. It processes public information on more than six million enterpreneurs (both active and inactive), which it attains from various publicly available registers. The company’s database allows the verification of those entities’ credibility and are often used, in particular, by banks to verify the creditworthiness of the data subjects.

New Approach to No-Deal Brexit in Poland – Polish Brexit Bill Will Grant a Transition Period for UK Financial Market Entities

By Marcin Wnukowski, Gosia Olech and Pawel Hoc on March 21, 2019 Posted in Banking, Finance

As the political turmoil regarding Brexit continues to grow in the UK, the spectre of a “no-deal” Brexit becomes a very realistic scenario. The shortness of time left to make the final decision is forcing businesses in the UK and EU to view the short-term future with unease and anxiety, particularly the uncertainty surrounding the legal standing of UK firms operating in the EU countries. This also applies to UK undertakings that conduct their economic activity in Poland.

With regard to the financial market, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) announced on 29 January 2019 that there would be no transition period for UK entities in case of no-deal Brexit (see our previous article on this issue).

This approach has been reversed by the Polish authorities, through the drafting a bill that provides for a set of provisions to facilitate the legal situation of such undertakings. The main goal of the law passed on 15 March 2019 is to grant additional time to the UK companies following a Brexit where there is no general treaty between UK and EU to regulate such a process.

Is it safe?

By Ivan Chalupa and Tomas Lupac on March 19, 2019 Posted in Corporate

Under Czech law, can a statutory body member of a Czech company escape from the risk of his/her liability, if a certain action (e.g. entering into a contract on behalf of the company) is approved by GM or the sole shareholder in advance? Directors of Czech limited liability companies and members of boards of directors of Czech joint-stock companies from various countries and with different legal backgrounds and experience may well be asking themselves this single question. Is it safe? Continue Reading

Polish data protection authority announces which sectors will come under scrutiny in 2019

By Magdalena Gad-Nowak on January 31, 2019 Posted in Data Protection, GDPR

On 24 January 2019, the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO) published a sectoral inspection schedule for 2019. According to the schedule, as approved by UODO’s President, the inspections will aim at verifying the legitimacy of personal data processing in the following private sectors: telemarketing, data brokers (as regards legal grounds for personal data processing) and profiling in the banking and insurance sector.