An Outline of Polish Commercial Law – Law: The Basic Concepts

Opis

An Outline of Polish Commercial Law – Law: The Basic Concepts

Autor: Joanna Kruczalak-Jankowska (red.)

Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, Wolters Kluwer

 

This publication is intended primarily for students of courses conducted in English, the curricula of which include topics related to the functioning of Polish entrepreneurs. Although these topics focus primarily on domestic business transactions, foreign transactions are also discussed. The authors hope that the book may be of interest to all those who seek information on the private law aspects of conducting business in Poland.

An Outline of Polish Commercial Law examines issues related to how entrepreneurs function, how they wind down activities, including for reasons of insolvency, and the legal transactions conducted within the confines of the economic trade of so-called commercial activities. One chapter also focuses on issues pertaining to the amicable settlement of disputes through arbitration. It is the intention of the authors that this volume be used as auxiliary didactic material for discussions and to assist students in preparing for examinations.

 

Table of contents

From the Editor (Joanna Kruczalak-Jankowska) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Part I

Introductory Issues (Joanna Kruczalak-Jankowska) . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 1. Concepts of business law and commercial law . . . . . . 13

Chapter 2. Principles of business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Chapter 3. Participants in business transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Part II

Forms of Running Business Activities (Maciej Zejda) . . . . . . . . . 21

Chapter 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

1.1. Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

1.2. Preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 2. Sole proprietorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Chapter 3. Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

3.1. Civil law partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

3.2. Commercial Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.3. Registered partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

3.4. Professional partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

3.5. Limited Partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

3.6. Limited joint-stock partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Chapter 4. Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

4.1. Preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

4.2. Incorporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

4.3. Company bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

4.4. Liability of company body members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

4.5. End of companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 5. Raising finance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

5.1. Sole proprietorships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

5.2. Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

5.3. Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Chapter 6. Strategic legal drafting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

6 Table of contents

Part III

Insolvency and Restructuring Proceedings

in Poland (Monika Maśnicka) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Chapter 1. Preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Chapter 2. Court and insolvency practitioners . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Chapter 3. Insolvency proceedings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

3.1. Requirements to start insolvency proceedings . . . . . . . . . . 90

3.2. Rules on ranking claims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Chapter 4. Restructuring proceedings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

4.1. Requirements to start restructuring proceedings . . . . . . . . 95

4.2. Requirements for the approval of an arrangement

and the role of the restructuring plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

4.3. Available out-of-court proceedings

for business restructuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Part IV

Trading Contracts in Domestic and International Trade –

Selected Problems (Robert Obrzud) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Chapter 1. General considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

1.1. The definition of a commercial contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

1.2. The division of commercial contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

1.3. The characteristics of commercial contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

1.4. Sources of law for commercial contracts

in international trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

1.4.1. Sources of statutory and non-statutory law . . . . . . . . 109

1.4.2. Soft law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Chapter 2. Commercial contracts in the Polish legal order . . . . . . 113

2.1. Preliminary activities to the conclusion of

a commercial contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

2.1.1. Letter of intent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

2.1.2. Preliminary agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

2.1.3. Contractual models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

2.1.4. Means of concluding commercial contracts . . . . . . . . 118

2.1.4.1. The offer and its acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

2.1.4.2. Negotiations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

2.1.4.3. Auction and tender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter 3. Contracts concluded with consumers . . . . . . . . . . . 124

3.1. Consumer rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

3.2. Off-premises and distance contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Table of contents 7

3.3. The consumer’s right of withdrawal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

3.4. Contracts referring to distance financial services . . . . . . . . . 137

Chapter 4. Forms of commercial contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

4.1. Basic forms and specific legal transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

4.2. The consequences of the failure to observe

the form of a legal transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Chapter 5. Securing the performance of

a commercial contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

5.1. General observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

5.2. Guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

5.3. Blank promissory note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

5.4. Bank guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Chapter 6. Selected commercial contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

6.1. Commercial contracts in domestic trade. Sales contract . . . . 154

6.2. An agency agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

6.3. A forwarding contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

6.4. Contract of carriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

6.5. Storage contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

6.6. Leasing contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

6.7. International trade contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

6.7.1. International sale of goods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

6.7.2. International carriage of goods by road . . . . . . . . . . 168

Part V

International Dispute Resolution (Kaja Zaleska-Korziuk) . . . . . . 173

Chapter 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

1.1. Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

1.2. Preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Chapter 2. International litigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

2.1. Jurisdiction: Brussels I bis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

2.2. Applicable law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

2.2.1. Rome I Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

2.2.2. Rome II Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

2.3. The problem of forum shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Chapter 3. International commercial arbitration . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

3.1. The concept of arbitration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

3.2. Legal framework of international commercial arbitration . . . 195

3.2.1. Arbitration rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

3.2.2. The UNCITRAL model law

on international arbitration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

3.2.3. Lex arbitri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

3.2.4. New York Convention on the Recognition

and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards . . . . . . . 200

3.3. Types of arbitration: ad hoc arbitration,

institutional arbitration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

3.4. Arbitration agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

3.4.1. Submission agreement and arbitration clause . . . . . . 204

3.4.2. Separability of an arbitration agreement . . . . . . . . . . 205

3.4.3. Competence-competence doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

3.4.4. Validity of arbitration agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

3.4.4.1. Formal validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

3.4.4.2. Arbitrability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

3.4.5. Strategic contract drafting – arbitration agreement . . . 211

3.4.5.1. Model arbitration agreements . . . . . . . . . . . 212

3.4.5.2. Identification of legal relationship . . . . . . . . . 213

3.4.5.3. Adoption of arbitration

as a method of dispute resolution . . . . . . . . . 214

3.4.5.4. Selection of institutional

or ad hoc arbitration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

3.4.5.6. Provision on finality and bindingness . . . . . . . 216

3.4.6. Pathological arbitration clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Chapter 4. Alternative dispute resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

4.1. Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

4.2. Mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

4.2.1. Concept of mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

4.2.2. Development of mediation in Poland. Note . . . . . . . . 236

4.3. Other types of ADR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

4.3.1. Conciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

4.3.2. Mini-trial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

4.3.3. Early neutral evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

4.3.4. Dispute review board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

4.3.5. Baseball arbitration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

4.3.6. Med-Arb and Arb-Med . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

4.4. Multi-tiered dispute resolution clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

4.5. ADR – pros and cons. Assignment topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Selected Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245