| In Principle

Amendments to Poland’s Corporate Income Tax (CIT) Act and Personal Income Tax (PIT) Act went into force at the beginning of 2015. One of the key changes is taxation of income earned by controlled foreign companies (CFC, in Polish: zagraniczne spółki kontrolowane).

Amendments to the Higher Education Law went into effect on 1 October 2014. Among a number of major modifications to the existing operating model for Polish universities, there are new rules for commercialisation of results of research and development and related knowhow.

In recent years, EU law has been generally the route through which Western models and ideas have been introduced into Polish law. Europe has decidedly much more to offer us, but with regard to certain legal institutions, we have to reach out for them by ourselves. One of them, which is ever more boldly knocking on our door, is a concept of trust. Will it be greeted in Poland with joy?

Over the next few months, a legal regime may come into existence in Poland for providing new types of toll collection and settlement services.

The Act of 28 November 2014 Amending the Payment Services Act went into force on 29 January 2015. The act introduced major changes for all participants in the payment instruments market in Poland, including a statu¬tory reduction in interchange fees and addition¬al obligations for acquirers and payment card organisations.

The Bond Act of 15 January 2015 will enter into force on 1 July 2015. Although it is a new law, for the most part it carries forward the regulations from the current law from 2005, with changes and additions where the need was revealed by the practice under the existing act.

Although Civil Procedure Code Art. 126 §2 does not clearly indicate that the term “address” means an individual defendant’s home address, and not some other address, the common practice of Polish courts has been to require that the home address be provided. If the plaintiff does not indicate the address where an individual defendant resides or the address of the registered office of a corporate defendant, the statement of claim will be rejected because it cannot be processed properly.

Practical remarks based on the regulations on the National Court Register and the Polish Classification of Activity.

Some of the provisions amending the Commercial Companies Code and other acts went into force on 15 January 2015, mainly concerning establishing and operation of a business in the form of a registered partnership, a limited partnership or a limited-liability company.

What is the scope of legal protection of databases? Can lawful users make unlimited use of them? Can the creator of the database limit access to it? The courts had to address these issues in a dispute between an airline and an operator of an online search engine for discount air tickets.

When examining the similarity of trademarks, the typeface in which verbal elements of the marks are written must be considered, the EU’s General Court ruled in a recent judgment on reputed trademarks.

The act of planning and preparation for a venture cannot be regarded as an “activity” causing an imminent threat of environmental damage.