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Broadcaster TVN has announced plans to take legal action to recover taxes that it was forced to pay in Poland in relation to the sale of its DTH platform. A DTH (‘direct-to-home’) platform is a method of receiving satellite television and was used by TVN to broadcast various channels until it sold its platform in 2012. TVN paid PLN 110 million (around EUR 26 million) in tax, under protest. At the same time, both TVN and Scripps Networks Interactive, which had since acquired TVN, said that they “strongly disagreed” with the decision of the tax authority concerned and would file an appeal with the...

The Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has decided that advertising by Vectra Ltd was anti-competitive because it had failed to sufficiently inform customers that the price would be increased after the promotional period. Vectra Ltd provides telecommunications services such as cable TV, Internet access and fixed-line telephony in Poland. Between September and December 2015, it organised a sales promotion under the slogan “You can have it all for 10 zlotys”. During that period, all services offered by the company were available for PLN 10. The various advertisements for...

On 25 January 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment in OTK v. SFP, concerning the issue of the Enforcement Directive (2004/48/EC) and “hypothetical royalties”. The case arose following a dispute between the Polish broadcaster Oławska Telewizja Kablowa (OTK), and Stowarzyszenie Filmowców Polskich (SFP), an organisation collectively managing copyright in Poland, in particular audiovisual works. As part of the proceedings, the Polish Supreme Court referred a question to the CJEU on whether Article 79(1)(3)(b) of Poland’s copyright law was compatible with EU...

On 13 December 2016, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal issued a judgment on the assessment of the constitutionality of the Act of 30 December 2015 amending the Broadcasting Act (case no. K 13/16). The act changed, in particular, the manner of electing the executives of state-owned broadcasting companies and terminated the mandates of the current members of the management and supervisory boards of said companies (see IRIS 2016-2/22). The judgment was published in the Journal of Law on 29 December 2016. The applications for investigating the constitutionality of the act have been filed both by a...

Within the framework of an expert dialogue with the Polish authorities, the Council of Europe (CoE) entrusted two experts, Ms Eve Salomon and Mr Jean-François Furnémont, with the task of preparing an expert opinion on three drafts bills regarding Polish public service media (the draft “Media Law package”). These draft bills were submitted to the Sejm (lower chamber of Polish Parliament) on the 20 of April 2016 for discussion (see also IRIS 2016-2/22). The expert opinion focuses on how the proposed provisions (the draft Act on National Media, draft Act on Audiovisual Contribution and draft Act on...