There are heavy administrative fines for payment backlogss. 🔹 As of the beginning of 2023, new regulations on penalties for excessive delays in commercial transactions are in force. Currently, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection no longer has the authority to waive the imposition of a fine in a situation where the sum of receivables not paid or paid late during the period under investigation is higher than the sum of liabilities not paid or paid late during that period. The above change negatively affects the situation of many entrepreneurs who, in the previous state of the law, often “saved themselves” with this premise and thus avoided high administrative penalties. 🔹 According to the law, excessive delay in the fulfillment of pecuniary benefits occurs when, over a period of 3 consecutive months, the sum of the value of due pecuniary benefits unfulfilled and fulfilled after the deadline by this entity amounts to at least PLN 2,000,000. Taking into account the fact that to the above “pool” of benefits are taken into account all benefits delayed (even by 1 day), it is not difficult for many entrepreneurs to meet the above premise, and consequently expose themselves to the risk of proceedings before the OCCP. 🔹 The amended law also introduced the institution of a “soft speech” (along the lines of antitrust and consumer proceedings) to the so-called congestion proceedings, with which the OCCP President may address the entrepreneur pointing out irregularities and expecting improvement in this regard, without simultaneously initiating administrative proceedings. The above will perhaps reduce the number of initiated proceedings that could end in a fine. 👉 At Markiewicz Sroczynski Mioduszewski we help entrepreneurs in obstruction proceedings, so we are curious to see the further development of the jurisprudential practice of the President of the OCCP in this regard.
