• Provident Polska, Polkomtel, Multimedia Polska.
• These enterprises were subject to court judgements on UOKiK’s decisions in the field of competition protection.

Provident - file no VII AGa 1473/18

The first judgement concerns a decision from December 2013, in which the Office recognized that Provident Polska violated consumers’ collective interests. In an agreement for loan serviced at client’s home, the company provided false information on total cost of such a loan and the actual annual rate of interest. Provident did not inform its clients about the amount of home service fee and additional preparatory fee. The President of UOKiK imposed fines on the company in the amount of over PLN 12 million in total.

In November 2017, SOKiK pronounced a judgement in which it reduced the fines imposed by UOKiK down to approx. PLN 770 000.

Both parties appealed against the judgement of the court of first instance. In November 2018, the Court of Appeal delivered its judgement in which it sustained the arguments of the President of UOKiK and dismissed the appeal. The Court of Appeal assessed the harmfulness of the practice of not providing full information on fees charged for servicing loan at client’s home more severely than SOKiK. In its opinion, consumers in a difficult financial situation, who urgently needed access to money, were particularly vulnerable to such loans because they were much more willing to accept unfavourable terms of which they learned only at the final stage of concluding a loan agreement. The Court also pointed out that the fees charged for servicing loan at client’s home were not proportional to the costs Provident had borne. According to the Court of Appeal, the President of UOKiK correctly calculated the amount of the fine imposed on the company.

Polkomtel - file no XVII AmA 56/16

Another judgement concerns Polkomtel’s appeal against the UOKiK decision from March 2016. The operator, without prior consent of prepaid phone users, run the ‘Non-Stop’ internet service for a trial period. Upon the service provision, the company did not provide its clients with full information allowing them to make an informed decision whether to conclude an agreement or not. Notices sent to subscribers did not contain relevant information about the activated service or such information was passed incorrectly. It concerned such data as the service name, information on the way to resign from the service, and information that at the end of free trial period clients would become paid subscribers. Furthermore, upon service activation consumers were not informed about the name of regulations in which they could find the necessary information on the service. According to the President of UOKiK, such practices could mislead consumers.

The Office stated that Polkomtel discontinued to apply the contested practices and obliged the company to publish the decision on its website.

In October 2018, the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection dismissed the operator’s appeal. In the grounds for the decision, the Court pointed out that text messages sent by Polkomtel to its clients made them falsely believe that the agreement was changed. The Court shared the view of the President of UOKiK that consumers were not sufficiently informed about what they should do if they wanted to resign from the service they did not order.

Multimedia Polska - file no XVII AmA 42/16

The last judgement concerns Multimedia Polska appeal against the UOKiK decision from December 2015. As part of the cable television service, the company guaranteed a certain number of television channels making up a selected package. At the same time, it did not specify the channels. Numerous complaints about the operator prove that the way the offer was presented made consumers convinced they had access to specific channels. Meanwhile, the most desired channels listed in agreements were not included in the offer or were soon replaced with others. The President of UOKiK decided that the operator violated consumers’ collective interests. In its decision, the Office obliged the company to allow the clients to terminate unfavourable agreements and imposed a fine in the amount of over PLN 4.8 million.

In October 2018, the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection dismissed the company’s appeal, stating that the way the offer was drafted was not only unclear to consumers but also allowed Multimedia Polska to make unilateral changes to provisions of the agreement. The Court sustained the amount of the fine imposed on the company.

Judicial decisions database

Since November 2015, the judicial decisions database  has been made available on the UOKiK website. It contains information about all final decisions on competition-restricting practices, concentration control, violation of consumers’ collective interests, and decisions issued in proceeding for abusive clauses, in which the President of UOKiK was a claimant. The database is available in the ‘Decisions’ tab on the UOKiK website: http://decyzje.uokik.gov.pl/bp/wyroki.nsf. Detailed terms and conditions governing the placement of judgements can be found in the following document: Principles governing the provision of information on court control over decisions made by the President of UOKiK.

Additional information for the media:

The UOKiK Press Office Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warsaw
Phone: 695 902 088, 22 55 60 345
E-mail: [SCODE]Yml1cm9wcmFzb3dlQHVva2lrLmdvdi5wbA==[ECODE]
Twitter: @UOKiKgovPL