On 12 June 2024, the Polish Supreme Court issued a judgment confirming that the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) can use the public compensation instrument for cases concerning infringements of the collective interests of consumers.
Under the Competition and Consumer Protection Act, the UOKiK has the power to impose a financial penalty on an undertaking for violating collective interests of consumers and to order actions to remedy the effects of such a violation. The statutory list of such actions is open ended and includes making a statement of specific content and form, which in practice is often tantamount to the obligation to inform consumers of the UOKiK’s decision stating the infringement.
In its decision-making practice, the UOKiK often makes use of the instrument of public compensation, e.g. ordering the undertaking to return the collected funds directly to consumers. The admissibility of this practice has been heavily debated in recent times. The existing case-law on compensation is also inconsistent in this respect. There have been judgments issued that accept that the UOKiK exercises such power while other judgments have been issued that deny such power. Those judgments denying such power argued that ordering a payment of specific sums to consumers is beyond the competence of UOKiK.
The case heard before the Supreme Court concerned a consumer credit-granting undertaking that was found to have infringed collective interests of consumers by failing to reduce the total cost of the credit and retaining all fees, despite early repayment of the credit.
In the case in question, in addition to imposing a financial penalty, the UOKiK also ordered that consumers be informed of: (i) the decision finding a violation; and (ii) the possibility of filing a complaint regarding wrongfully retained fees while at the same time ordering the undertaking to accept such complaints, which entailed the refund of part of the collected fees.
In its judgment of 12 June, the Supreme Court confirmed the admissibility of the UOKiK granting the above form of compensation. In its judgment, the Supreme Court emphasised that the UOKiK did not order the undertaking to pay any specific sums of money to consumers, but only ordered that complaints be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of law in order to remedy the continuing effects of the violation.
For more information on this ruling and competition law in Poland, contact your CMS client partner or these CMS experts.
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