• President of UOKiK has issued a decision affecting Cyfrowy Polsat on additional services launched without an explicit consent of subscribers.
• The company will reimburse its consumers for the services such as “Ochrona Internetu” [Internet Protection] and “Serwis IPLA 3 z 3” [IPLA Services 3 of 3].
• The complaints submitted previously in this case will be recognised.

In the course of its proceedings, UOKIK has found that when concluding or amending terms and conditions of agreements related to access to the Internet, Cyfrowy Polsat had automatically activated one or two additional services for its consumers. At that stage the company failed to ask consumers for a permission for such an activation. Meanwhile, the entrepreneur should have obtained, as early as then, an explicit consent to the activation of the said services and ensuing fees accrued after the end of a free-of-charge promotion period.

What is meant here is the “Internet Protection” anti-virus program and the service of playing audio-visual materials at various devices - “IPLA Service 3 of 3”. They were the components of a majority of promotional offers and consumers could opt out of them at the time of concluding their agreements irrespective of them being interested in the services or not. Such a capacity was available as late as after the agreement had been concluded. What is more, consumers were the ones on whom an obligation was imposed to opt out of the additional services before the end of the free period of using them in order to avoid the corresponding payments.

- Consumers should have a real capacity of choosing and assessing if they need a specific service and if they want to be charged with the costs related to its activation. The fees beyond the agreed main service, in the case of Cyfrowy Polsat, beyond a subscription for the access-to-Internet service, must be clearly and explicitly accepted by the consumer at the time of concluding the agreement at the latest - says Tomasz Chróstny, President of UOKiK.

In his decision, President of UOKiK has imposed on Cyfrowy Polsat a duty to perform the commitment made by them. Consumers are entitled to a compensation affecting first three invoices containing the fees for activation, without their explicit consent, of the additional services provided they had opted out of them before they received the fourth such an invoice. Additionally, the company will re-consider and recognise in full the existing complaints filed to date. The commitment of Cyfrowy Polsat will apply to both current and former customers while the details of its performance have been contained in the wording of the decision.

Furthermore, Cyfrowy Polsat will inform its subscribers about the decision of President of UOKIK by way of a tailor-made correspondence as well as at the Company’s website and its social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter).

The decision is not final. Cyfrowy Polsat will start to perform its commitment on dated specified in the decision as soon as it becomes final.

The obligation to obtain an explicit consent to any and all additional payments before the agreement is concluded arises from Article 10 of the Act on Consumer Rights.. President of UOKiK has repeatedly indicated the foregoing in his activities toward the tele-communications sector. Recently, decisions have been issued with regard to UPC, Netia, P4 (Play operator) and Orange Polska. Now the proceedings pertaining to Vectra are pending.

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