The Council of Ministers has adopted the draft act implementing the Representative Actions Directive

• Agnieszka Trzaska-Śmieszek
• Magdalena Osmęda

22 May 2024

On the 21^stMay 2024, a meeting of the Council of Ministers was held, during which the Council was scheduled to consider the draft act amending the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings and certain other acts (UC16).

According to media reports, the Council of Ministers adopted the aforementioned draft act at the meeting. This means that the draft should now be submitted to the Sejm.

The version of the draft adopted by the Council of Ministers has not yet been published on the website of the Government Legislation Centre. Once it is published, we are going to provide an overview of the version approved by the Council of Ministers.

The draft is aimed at implementation of the Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2020 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers and repealing Directive 2009/22/EC – commonly referred to as the Representative Actions Directive (hereinafter: “Directive 2020/1828”).

In our previous post we discussed the draft of the 11^th April \ 2024, which had been submitted to the Legal Committee. On the 20^th May  2024, the Government Legislation Centre website published the next (seventh) version of the draft of the 14^th May 2024, which includes amendments introduced by the Committee. The 14^th May 2024 draft does not introduce any substantial changes compared to the 11^th April 2024 version. The amendments are primarily editorial and technical in nature, aimed at aligning the draft with legislative drafting standards.

The latest version of the draft adds an information that the Directive 2020/1828 is to be implemented by the means of the following legal acts:

• the Act of 17^th December 2009 on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings (Journal of Laws of 2023, item 1212) – hereinafter: the “UDRPG” or “Class Action Act”
• the Act of the 23^rd April 1964 – Civil Code (Journal of Laws of 2023, items 1610, 1615, 1890, 1933, and of 2024, item 653) – with the draft not providing for any amendments to the provisions of the Civil Code
• the Act of the 17^th November 1964 – Code of Civil Procedure (Journal of Laws of 2023, item 1550, as amended) – with the draft not providing for any amendments to the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure
• the Act of the 28^th July  2005 on Court Fees in Civil Cases (Journal of Laws of 2023, items 1144, 1532, and 1860)
• the Act of 16^th February 2007 on Competition and Consumer Protection (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 594).

A significant amendment introduced by the draft act is the Article 6, an intertemporal provision, which states: “Proceedings in group litigation initiated before the date of entry into force of this Act and not concluded by that date – shall be governed by the provisions of the Act amended in Article 1 in their previous wording”.

In addition to editorial and clarifying changes, the following amendments have been introduced to the proposed provisions of the UDRPG:

1. Refund of the fee paid by a group member (consumer) to the qualified entity not only in the event of the claim being dismissed, but also in the case of a change of the qualified entity. The qualified entity must refund the fees no later than 14 days from the date the court decision (on dismissal of the claim or change of the qualified entity) becomes final and binding – in case of delay, statutory interest for late payment shall apply;
2. Court rulings aimed at ensuring compliance of the qualified entity’s financing with the law will be issued in the form of an order; a deadline of one month has been set for the qualified entity to take appropriate measures following the court’s request;
3. A provision has been introduced under which a fine for evading compliance with a final and binding court order to disclose evidence may also be imposed on a third party.

To sum up, the formal legislative process in the Polish Parliament is expected to begin shortly. Will the Sejm introduce any significant amendments to the proposed provisions? That remains to be seen.