• President of UOKiK, Tomasz Chróstny, has initiated proceedings against the Polskie Destylarnie [Polish Distillaries] company which organized the “Palikot Vault” lending campaign.
• A fictitious car as a prize in a competition, rolling over debts and attributing others' achievements are some of the charges made by President of UOKiK.
• The manager of the Polish Distilleries company may be also fined.

President of UOKiK, Tomasz Chróstny, has initiated proceedings in a case of violation of collective consumer interests against the company Polskie Destylarnie of Lublin. President of UOKIK has been questioning the practices that took place in the “Skarbiec Palikota" lending campaign. From May to the end of June last year, the company offered consumers the opportunity to give it an interest-bearing loan on apparently exceptionally favorable terms, including the opportunity to participate in the company's future profits and take part in contests with attractive prizes. At the same time, it implied, in an unauthorized manner, that it was operating on the principle of regulated crowdfunding (loan crowdfunding) by raising funds for investment purposes.

- The charges were brought against Polskie Destylarnie, as well as the company's manager responsible for the practices. We began to look into the matter in May last year, that is, at the time of the launch of the “Skarbiec Palikota" campaign. We took activities based on our own analysis of the market, including a review of information available in social media. The conducted activities were complemented by signals from consumers and material collected during an inspection conducted with the participation of the Office of the Polish Financial Supervisory Authority at the entrepreneur's headquarters. We have also notified the prosecutor's office in this case due to the possibility of an offence - explains President of UOKiK, Tomasz Chróstny.

Medals for brands not owned by the company 

Polskie Destylarnie built their reputation, credibility and the trust of potential investors by providing misleading information in advertisements that appeared mainly in social media. They reported on the honors and awards of alcohol brands that did not actually belong to it. It's about beer or wine brands, for example: BUH, Koźlak. The company used phrases such as "our products" for this purpose, emphasized that wines and beers received special awards "We have won 13 (!) medals”, illustrating this with graphic materials. President of UOKiK suspects that in order to encourage potential investors to contribute, the company also presented financial results of other entities not involved in the “Skarbiec Palikota” campaign. As a result of such actions, consumers may have thought they were dealing with renowned company.

Vault to cover debts

The company encouraged consumers to lend to it at high interest rates. It reported that it wanted to make investments, including conquering the U.S. alcohol market. At the same time, the company stipulated that the money would not be used to pay off debts, and reported that it was in good financial standing. According to information accumulated by UOKiK, within just a few weeks of the launch of the action, the entrepreneur had already stopped performing the loans concluded with consumers in a timely manner. In addition, the funds raised by the campaign, instead of being invested as promised, were used by the company for the company's current debts under contracts with other companies. If consumers had known from the beginning about such a purpose for the capital they were raising, they might not have lent money to the company.    

Fictional Rolls Royce Ghost and trips to New York City

Potential investors were to be attracted by attractive prizes which were announced by the company's manager in its social media. Polskie Destylarnie organized an online contest, where trips to Marrakech, New York and Paris, among others, as well as a luxury passenger car from Rolls Royce Ghost were up for grabs. To join, one had to pay a minimum of PLN 499 and come up with names for the company's alcoholic products. UOKiK has found out that the winners of the contest were not selected and none of the prizes were awarded. At the same time, neither Polskie Destylarnie nor the company's managers owned the car - it was on lease. The failure to award prizes, despite previous assurances in marketing messages, is one of more serious unfair market practices provided for in the regulations.

Polskie Destylarnie faces a fine of up to 10% of the turnover achieved in the year preceding the year of the fine for each of the six practices. Financial consequences may also be incurred by the manager who is at risk of facing a fine of up to PLN 2 million for intentionally allowing violations of the collective interests of consumers.