| In Principle

Will AI replace lawyers and judges or simply change the way they work and think about the law?

A member of the supervisory board of a limited-liability company may be delegated to act as a member of the company’s management board. How should this be handled effectively, and what should be expected?

During the course of construction projects, issues often arise involving additional work or substitute work. Contractors perceive even minor departures from the original plans as additional work and demand an increased fee, while investors not only expect all their instructions to be followed within the agreed price, but treat any opposition by the contractor as a breach of contract. This dynamic works similarly between the general contractor and subcontractors. But the realities of the real estate development process often require work to be done even when the parties take different views of the work and do not sign a separate contract covering it. Is an additional fee nonetheless owed for performing such work?

Any new technology that gains universal application changes the existing world. The reconfiguration occurs imperceptibly but thoroughly. But in this new reality, how should the rule of law, values essential to the civil society and human rights be protected?

CJEU Advocate General Melchior Wathelet issued his opinion in C-284/16 Achmea on 19 September 2017. He takes the view that the existence of bilateral investment treaties between member states is compatible with EU law.

The ban on trading in references was supposed to cure the ills of the public procurement market. But every drug has side effects—in this case, disorientation of contractors and absurd conclusions when verifying fulfilment of the conditions for participation in public tenders.

The recent introduction into the Polish legal system of the possibility of applying for disclosure of evidence in the other party’s possession in cases alleging antitrust violations has stirred a debate over the treatment of evidence in Polish civil procedure. Should parties be given a broader right to demand production of evidence by the other side?

In July 2017 the Government Legislative Centre published a proposal to amend the Trading in Financial Instruments Act and certain other acts, to bring the Polish legal system into compliance with the EU laws governing the capital market, in particular MiFID II (Directive 2014/65/EU) and MiFIR (Regulation 600/2014). The amendment would significantly change the wording of a number of existing acts and require capital market entities to comply with the new regulations. One notable feature is the introduction of the notion of reverse solicitation, not previously regulated in Polish law.

A year has passed since introduction into the Polish civil law of revolutionary but not widely noticed changes in the form of legal transactions. A few examples will illustrate how important these changes are.

Long-awaited regulations limiting the scope of the duty to conclude written contracts for supply of agricultural products went into force on 22 August 2017. Under the new rules, the requirement for written contracts applies only to supplies of defined groups of agricultural products from farmers operating in Poland.

According to the World Bank’s latest report, Doing Business 2017, Poland has once again advanced and now holds 24th place among 190 countries ranked in terms of how easy it is to do business there. And in EY’s European Attractiveness Survey 2016 Poland was recognised as the 5th most attractive FDI destination in Europe (1st in CEE). Poland’s main strengths are stable economic growth, a large consumer market, numerous tax incentives, and its location at the crossroads of major continental trade routes.

One of the most anticipated acts in the environmental arena has now been adopted: the new Water Law. This statute with 570 articles enters into force on 1 January 2018 and will fundamentally change the rules for water management in Poland.