The Regional Court in Warsaw 25^th Civil Division in the following ruling bench:

Krystyna Stawecka, Regional Court Judge

having examined on 6^th August 2016 in Warsaw at the hearing in camera in the group action filed by J. K. – the group representative against Bank (…) S.A. in W. for payment

1. Group members must be bound by a specific subjective and objective bond. The subjective bond pertains to individuals in the group who have suffered as a result of the perpetrator’s single act. In a class action, such individuals pursue claims from one entity (the violator). In turn, the objective commonality is related to the type of violation which has this effect that a joint pursuit of claims by the group is substantiated and possible. The bond existing between members of the group must be based on the same or similar factual basis.

1. Filing a motion for the deposit to secure the costs of the proceedings, the Defendant should make plausible, firstly, that the action against him is obviously unfounded or that the statement of claims is unlikely to be allowed, therefore it has characteristics of litigiousness and, secondly, that the lack of the deposit to secure the future claim for reimbursement of costs of the proceedings will make an execution of the cost from the Claimant impossible or significantly more difficult.

The Regional Court in Warsaw 3^rd Civil Division in the following ruling bench:

Presiding Judge:           Joanna Korzeń, Regional Court Judge

having examined on 25^th May at the hearing in camera the case filed by the Municipal Consumer Ombudsman (…) – the representative of the group and of the members of the group:

1. The mandatory representation by a professional counsel set out in Article 4 (4) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings means that the solely the group representative’s legal counsel who is an attorney-at-law or a legal counsel has the capacity to engage in acts in law in the action. The requirement of mandatory representation by a professional counsel in such a situation is of an absolute nature which means that the group representative may not act in the case personally, but only through a professional counsel. Actions performed by the party will be ineffective.

1. The distinction between pecuniary claims and non-pecuniary is significant insofar as in order to establish a member’s affiliation with the group in the scope of non-pecuniary claims, the plausibility is in fact sufficient.
2. In the case for the establishment of the non-existence and for payment, the issue of whether the members submitted a declaration on evading the legal effects of one’s declarations of will – or not – is without meaning. The Claimants site the unconditional invalidity of contracts (Article 58 of the Civil Code) and not conditional invalidity, which is dependent on the submission of the declaration. Membership of the group is also not affected by the fact that one of the group members entered into the challenged contract after already being the owner of the premises, as opposed to the remaining members of the group.

1. The Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings does not determine whether group members’ consent to dispositive actions must be expressed before undertaking such action. It seems however, that lege non distinguente, such consent may be expressed either before undertaking of the act or thereafter.

1. Under Article 385³ pt 20 of the CC, a provision providing for a consumer’s contractor’s right to determine or to raise the price or remuneration after a contract was concluded without granting to the consumer the right to withdraw from the contract constitutes an inadmissible contractual clause.
2. A superficial difference between provisions of a given contract template and those contractual clauses deemed inadmissible by the Consumer and Competition Protection Court leads to a conclusion they are identical as those the court recognized as abusive.
3. As regards establishing the invalidity of contract template provisions including valorization clauses, the defendant’s allegation that he had negotiated the amount of valorization payment with some of the group members and that those who acquired their rights by assignment had been informed on the value of the valorization fee is of no significance.
4. Further application of contract provisions recognized as inadmissible constitutes an unlawful action of the entrepreneur infringing on consumers’ interests, i.e. a practice infringing on the collective consumer rights in the meaning of Article 24 [2] of the Consumer and Competition Protection Act.
5. The declarations included in agreements on establishment of separate ownership of premises under which the parties mutually waive all the claims arising from the performance of the contract for construction and sale of residential premises are not declarations on waiving the claims for the return of the undue valorization fee.
6. Contract clauses subject to control on the basis of Article 385¹ CC are lawful, However, due to additional premises indicated in this Article, they might be deemed inadmissible and in consequence not binding for the consumer.
7. Application of valorization clauses is admissible as long as they shape rights and obligations of consumers in a fair way.
8. Under Article 385¹ [1] CC, application of an inadmissible clause in a contract template results in the lack of the binding force of such a provision while the remaining parts of the template remain effective.

1. It is of no significance from the point of view of a decision on group membership that entities who join the group having concluded agreements on the grounds of different Insurance General Terms and Conditions than entities covered by the statement of claims, or the lack of indication of the Insurance General Terms and Conditions on the grounds of which the agreement was concluded. As mentioned above, everyone, i.e. both heretofore and new members of the group derive their claims from the fact of existence of a contractual clause for the defendant constituting the grounds for collecting a redemption fee. The fact of the existence of such provisions is confirmed by the contents of the agreements concluded by group members with the defendant which indicate the method of calculation of redemption fees, as well as from the documents pertaining to insurance policy settlement after its dissolution. Therefore, the content of provisions questioned by the group members and, what follows, the fact of collection of redemption fees stems directly from the concluded agreements and is similar in relation to all the members.

The Regional Court in Warsaw 1^stCivil Division with the following ruling bench:

Presiding Judge: Grzegorz Tyliński, Regional Court Judge

Judges: Bożena Chłopecka, Regional Court Judge, Ewa Ligoń-Krawczyk, Regional Court Judge

having examined on 8^th April 2016 in Warsaw at a hearing in camera the case filed by P.K. against the State Treasury – Minister for Labour and Social Policy, Social Insurance Institution (ZUS), (…) a joint stock company with its registered office in W., (…) a joint stock company with its registered office in W., (…) a joint stock company with its registered office in W., (…) a joint stock company with its registered office in W., (…) a joint stock company with its registered office in W, (…) a joint-stock company with its registered office in W., (…) a joint-stock company with its registered office in W., (…) a joint stock company with its registered office in W., for a determination