Amendments introduced by the Polish Senate regarding the entry into force of the National Register of Debtors in December 2021 were supported by the Polish Sejm. Over 30 Senate amendments to the amendment to the Act on the National Register of Debtors (KRZ) were adopted by the Sejm. Most of them were editorial and precise. The amendments postponed the entry into force of the provisions on the Polish National Debt Register – from the beginning of July 2021 to the beginning of December 2021. The amendment will now go to the Polish president. The new regulations also introduce a partial computerization of consumer bankruptcy proceedings.
Purpose
of the amendment
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On the website of the Polish Government Legislation Center there was published a draft act aimed to amend the act on investments in wind farms (“the distance act” or “the 10H Act”). Currently, it is not possible to issue permits for the construction of wind farms at a distance less than ten times the total height of the turbine from residential properties and forms of nature protection. This is a very high risk both for the further development of this sector of electricity producers and for the already operating wind farms.
Slowdown
in the construction of new wind farms in Poland
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AML stands for anti-money laundering, and its main task is to protect the financial system from being used for criminal purposes. Currently, the virtual currency market is one of the fastest growing in the world. Unfortunately, they are often used for illegal purposes. To prevent this, on May 15, 2021 an amendment to the AML Act entered into force.
Act of
March 1, 2018 on counteracting money laundering and financing of terrorism –
Polish regulations
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On 11 August 2021 the Polish Act of Administrative Procedure Code Amendment was passed by the Polish lower house of the Parliament after the Senate’s adjustment consideration. On 14 August 2021 the Amendment Act was signed by the Polish president and on 16 August 2021 was published in the Polish Official Journal of Laws. As we can read on the official websites and from the official Ministry of Justice statement (from the ministerial conference):
The amendment to the Polish Administrative Procedure Code protects the interests of thousands of Polish citizens who are uncertain about the fate of properties important to them. The provisions passed by the Sejm dismiss the spectre of never-ending claims against the State Treasury. [1]
This statement should be read in the context of the real estate’s reprivatization socio-legal problem, to which politicians have mainly referred. [2]
It
is worth to notice that this amendment implemented Constitutional Tribunal
judgement of 2015 (P 46/13) on the inconsistency with the Polish Constitution of
previous procedural articles and there are a lot of critical voices about
recent amendment, for instance here:
https://www.prawo.pl/samorzad/niewaznosc-decyzji-administracyjnych-niebezpieczna-nowelizacja,510006.html
To see the Constitutional Tribunal judgement: https://sip.lex.pl/#/jurisprudence/521776428.
THE
AMENDMENT ACT PROVISIONS
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publication date: September 30, 2021 – text updated on January 23, 2023
It is currently accepted that only 5% of start-ups in the technology industry are successful. This fact means that, in principle, the investor has as much as a 95% risk of losing money. However, if the investment turns out to work with no failure the investors may gain millions.
The more
innovative the subject matter the bigger the risk
A good
example of a risky investment is a highly discussed case of Elizabeth Holmes.
She is the founder of biotech start-up, Theranos. The main concept of her
business was to create a blood-testing method which promises to detect a range
of illnesses with just a prick on the fingertip. She based her business idea on
her fear of needles. One device would replace professional laboratory machines.
The technology was supposed to revolutionize the healthcare industry. As this
idea seemed futuristic and innovative it
is no surprise that it seduced many high-profile investors that invested
millions into this business. Silicon
Valley investors have poured more than $200 million into projects in the past
years to build a device that analyzes blood – according to ‘Financial Times’. However,
in 2015 it emerged the blood-testing devices did not work and Theranos was
doing most of its testing on commercially available machines made by other
manufacturers. The company shut down three years later. Numerous problems have
arisen since then. The invention gave false results, resulted to undetected
diseases. As it later turned out, it was not the machine that tested the
samples, but a team of people appointed to do so. The machine was only an
object of advertising and marketing. Now Ms. Holmes faces 12 fraud charges and
she is accused of deceiving investors and patients with defrauding investors
through a ‘sophisticated, multi-year fraud’.
The
business obtained one of its first financings in 2004 from a well-known
investor from Silicon Valley, Tim Draper. Theranos founder began collaboration
with former senior U.S. government officials to serve on the board of
directors. Among them were: George Shultz (former Secretary of Labor, Treasury,
and State of the US government), Gen. James Mattis (US Secretary of Defense),
Henry Kissinger (former Secretary of State), William Perry (former Secretary of
Defense), Betsy DeVos (US Secretary of Education) and many other successful
individuals.
It sounds
surprising that highly respectable, influential people did not even ask Holmes
for detailed financial analysis and accurate product information. They have
lost millions of dollars because of being too superficial in their due
diligence.
Polish
tech and software start-up scene
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