• TelePL, Vigget.
• These are the undertakings to which the decisions of the UOKiK aimed at ensuring the protection of consumers pertained.

The above-mentioned judicial decisions pertain to decisions adopted in the area of collective consumer interests, as well as the lawsuits brought by UOKiK in order to deem certain clauses as prohibited.

TelePL – case no. VI ACa 376/15

The first of the presently discussed judgements was adopted in July 2017 and pertained to the appeal brought by TelePL against the judgement of the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection from December 2014. The subject of the proceedings was the decision of the President of the UOKiK from December 2012, in which the UOKiK challenged two of the terms and conditions included in the contract for telecommunication services. The service provider was accused of charging both the activation and the compensation fees from customers in cases where the provision of subscription services never actually commenced as well as in cases where the consumer changed or cancelled the order. The financial penalties imposed on TelePL in connection with the practices identified amounted to in excess of PLN 632 thousand in total. Following a hearing, the Court of Appeal decided to dismiss the appeal in its entirety. The Court has stated that it upholds the findings of the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection which has determined that, by imposing activation and compensation fees, TelePL infringed the provisions of telecommunication law. Furthermore, the court has also found that the penalty imposed upon the company was calculated in an appropriate manner as it took into account the substantial revenues generated by the undertaking by charging the impugned fees from its customers.

 Vigget – case no. VI ACa 66/16

The second judgement pertains to the decision of August 2014, in which the President of the UOKiK found that the company known as Vigget was guilty of infringement of collective interests of consumers due to the fact that, in its contracts, it specified the value of goods which did not correspond with the actual sale price, thereby misleading the consumers into thinking that a significant price advantage actually existed. The company also applied certain prohibited clauses in its contracts. The penalty imposed upon the company for the use of the aforementioned practices amounted to in excess of PLN 89 thousand. In 2017, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal brought by the undertaking. In the oral statement of the reasons for its decision, the Court stated that the undertaking applied fictional discounts which referred to prices for which the products were never actually sold. Such marketing policies are inconsistent with the established customs and constitutes an unfair market practice. The Court held that the penalty imposed was proportionate to the infringement.

Appeals procedure

An appeal against the decision of the President of the UOKiK may be made to the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection; the judgements of the Court may, in turn, be appealed against to the Court of Appeal in Warsaw. In certain cases it is also possible to file a cassation appeal against the judgement of the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court.

Court judgement database

From November 2015, a court judgement database is available on the UOKiK website. The database contains information on all judgements pertaining to the decisions on competition-restricting practices, control of concentration and infringement of collective consumer interests as well as judgements issued in cases concerning abusive clauses in which the President of UOKiK appeared as the claimant. The database is available under the “Judgements” tab on the UOKiK website: http://decyzje.uokik.gov.pl/bp/wyroki.nsf. Detailed information on the publication of court judgements is provided in the document entitled Rules on providing information on the judicial review of the decisions of the President of UOKiK.

Additional information for the media:

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