UOKiK, the Polish competition authority, is starting an educational campaign to reduce the number of competition law violations by local municipalities and their subsidiaries.
In 2011 to date, local municipalities have been the subject of 41 UOKiK decisions and received fines totalling PLN 1.2 million, mainly relating to water supply and sewage services.
In one case, the Boguchwała commune (in the Podkarpackie region) required consumers to bear the cost of building a sewage system while under Polish law recipients of sewage system are only required to incur the cost of building sewage terminal on their own property.
In another, the Mrągowo commune (in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie region) ordered its inhabitants to establish special committees to collect funds to build a sewage network which would then be transferred free of charge to the commune.
Similarly, the Krasnobród commune (in the Lubelskie region) imposed excessive and unjustified charges on its inhabitants for lost water where the consumer had caused damage to their own water meter.
This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq
Law-Now information is for general purposes and guidance only. The information and opinions expressed in all Law-Now articles are not necessarily comprehensive and do not purport to give professional or legal advice. All Law-Now information relates to circumstances prevailing at the date of its original publication and may not have been updated to reflect subsequent developments.
The original publication date for this article was 19/09/2011.