Real Estate
During the period of the restrictions in commercial activity conducted in buildings with a retail surface exceeding 2,000 sq. m., the mutual rights and obligations of the parties to leases, tenancy agreements or other similar agreements, under which retail premises are used, shall temporarily expire. The deadline for payment of the tax on revenue from commercial buildings will be postponed and relevant deadlines in administrative proceedings will not start to run and those which are pending will be suspended.
Dispute Resolution
The new Covid-19 regulation introduces numerous changes to the functioning of the Polish justice system for all kinds of cases, including commercial, administrative and civil ones – both with regard to the activity of state courts, as well as administrative courts and administrative authorities, the lapse of numerous time limits, as well as the rights of participants of various proceedings.
Competition/Antitrust
The Rescue Package has implications for the competition and consumer protection enforcement in Poland. As regards competition law: (i) new regime of maximum prices for certain products is introduced, (ii) the review timelines in merger control proceedings are halted and (iii) support instruments constituting state aid for undertakings are provided. In the sphere of consumer protection the Rescue Package (i) cuts the costs of consumer credit and (ii) shifts introduction of new consumer-alike regime for contracts with SMEs to next year.
Capital Markets
The Rescue Package is intended to bring about several important changes affecting also the Polish capital market. The specific solutions further develop the ideas presented by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority and included in its extraordinary Supervisory Stimulus Package for Security and Development to support the capital market, updated on 27 March 2020.
Banking and Finance
The Rescue Package in the area of Lending includes topics: Guarantees for large and medium companies, loan prolongation and suspension for SMEs, credit export - widening of insurance catalogue, technology innovation loans, lowering of consumer lending costs, preferential mortgage loans treatment.
Corporate
The Rescue Package introduces, among other things, significant amendments to the Polish Code of Commercial Companies with respect to the operation of corporate bodies of Polish commercial capital companies, which are primarily aimed at facilitating the decision-making process within corporate bodies in commercial capital companies.
Employment
Measures available for the employer under the Rescue Package provide various solutions aiming at customization of the conditions of work and pay of the employees to the economic situation of the employer affected by the Covid-19, including: (i) reduction of remuneration during economic downtime, (ii) reduction of working time and remuneration, (iii) application of less favourable conditions of work and pay, (iv) flexible organization of working time. In case of application of certain of the referred measures the employer, upon meeting determined conditions, may receive subsidies to the remunerations of the employees. There are also several other temporary solutions regarding certain practical aspects of employment relation introduced to address current problems of the employers. We discuss below selected major ones.
Tax
The Rescue Package also includes a number of tax measures aimed at supporting Polish taxpayers in these difficult times. We have prepared a brief summary of some of the most important ones in our opinion.
