An amendment to the Legal Costs in Civil Cases Act has introduced major changes to the fee rates in litigation, largely affecting cases between business entities.

Corporate cases

The fee for a lawsuit in a number of cases concerning shareholder-company relationships has spiked from the previous PLN 2,000 to PLN 5,000. This increased fee applies to the following case types: company/partnership dissolution; exclusion of a shareholder/member from a company/partnership; repeal of a members’ resolution or a general meeting resolution; declaration of invalidity of a members’ resolution or a general meeting resolution; determination of the existence or inexistence of a company’s governing body resolution; repeal of a bondholder meeting resolution; and declaration of invalidity of a bondholder meeting resolution.

Regulatory cases

Fees payable for appeals and interlocutory appeals against decisions entered in proceedings before the President of the Energy Regulatory Office (URE), President of the Electronic Communication Office (UKE) and President of the Railway Transport Office (UTK) have soared tenfold. A fee of PLN 1,000 will have to be paid for an appeal, instead of the PLN 100 charged previously. Similarly, for an interlocutory appeal, the fee has climbed to PLN 500 from the previous PLN 50.

Intellectual Property cases

Legal costs have also changed for filing lawsuits over copyright and related rights and for invention, utility model, industrial design, trademark, geographic designation and topography rights lawsuits and lawsuits over other rights to intangible property, including Community intellectual property rights, as well as lawsuits against unfair competition.

For cases of the types above where the value of the claim exceeds PLN 20,000, a relative fee of 5% of that value will have to be paid on each claim for money for a lawsuit, but not more than PLN 200,000. This means that the fee payable will range from PLN 1,000 to as much as PLN 200,000, as applicable. For cases with claims below PLN 20,000, the fee for a lawsuit will be PLN 100 to PLN 1,000. For claims other than money the fee will be PLN 300.

Land and Mortgage Registers

The fixed fee of PLN 60 has gone to PLN 100 for the following application types: to establish a land and mortgage register; to join properties into one in a single land and mortgage register which already exists, whatever the number of properties being joined; to separate a property or a part of a property; to correct Section I-O concerning the designation of the property; to enter a warning of inconsistency between the legal status evidenced in the land and mortgage register and the actual legal status; and to make entries other than those listed in Articles 42 and 43 of the Legal Costs in Legal Cases Act.

Be on the lookout for new updates on changes to the Legal Costs in Civil Cases Act and the Polish Code of Civil Procedure.