Order of the District Court of Warsaw, XX Commercial Department, dated April 27, 2021
XX GC 1004/12

1. Class proceedings have a number of significant differences from ordinary civil proceedings. First of all, the course of the proceedings, the prerequisites for the admissibility of the proceedings and the scope of civil cases that can be recognized in group proceedings, the formation of the subject party, the rules for determining the remuneration of an attorney, the specific requirements for the content of a lawsuit, as well as a number of formal differences related to the conduct of group proceedings are different. All these differences mean that it is not possible to apply directly all the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code that have not been excluded by the provision of Article 24(1) of the AIA. This leads to the conclusion that also to proceedings initiated before June 1, 2017, the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code should be applied accordingly.
2. The provision of Article 24(1) of the U.S.D.P.G. has never excluded the application of Article 193 of the Code of Civil Procedure, despite its several amendments. In view of the importance of this provision, the exclusion from application of neighboring provisions, i.e., Articles 194-196 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and the lack of changes in this regard when subsequent amendments were made, it should be considered that this was a conscious decision by the legislator. Nor does the application of this provision definitively exclude the distinctiveness of group proceedings. Therefore, it should have been assumed that, in principle, the modification of the action recognized in the class proceedings is permissible.
3. (3) The law does not provide for a specific procedure for resolving the issue of admissibility of the inclusion of new claims in group proceedings. As a result, the provisions relating to the claims filed in the lawsuit should be applied accordingly.

District Court in Warsaw XX Commercial Division, composed of:

Presiding Judge:           SSO Katarzyna Kisiel

Judges:                           SSO Joanna Sieradz; SSO Łukasz Oleksiuk (spr.)

having examined on April 27, 2021 in Warsaw at a hearing the case from the action of (…) spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością with its registered office in W. against (…) with its registered office in N. (C.) for the protection of copyrights and related rights in group proceedings

decides:

to hear the case with respect to the new claims submitted by the plaintiff in the letter of September 23, 2019 in the group proceedings.