17 June 2020 The so-called Shield 4.0 returned to the Senate. A party recommended one hundred amendments. The participants in the meeting were in agreement – the bill cannot proceed to the President's signature in its current form.
Recommendations concerning the speciality presented commissions: Families, Senior and Social Policy, Budget and Public Finance and Territorial Government and State Administration.
During the sitting 17 June this year The majority of Senators advocated the deletion of articles without, in their opinion, a link with the support of companies and institutions in the fight against the consequences of the crisis caused by the epidemic.
This includes rules amending the Criminal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Code of Offences, as well as building rights or the system of common courts. The chairman of the budget committee Kazimierz Kleina expressed hope that these issues would be regulated in a separate amendment.
Senator Grzegorz Bierecki, on the other hand, announced the submission of a request for a minority to restore deleted articles on these issues.
Selected Amendments
- provisions allowing the employer, who is in a difficult situation as a result of the epidemic, to reduce the level of severance payments, compensation for workers should not apply to persons above 65 the years of age and persons retiring from an epidemic or an epidemic;
- Local governments for all months in which they have lost at least 20% revenue from those months of the year 2019, they would not pay the so-called janosic;
- Whereas the committees recommended an amendment aimed at making it possible for cultural institutions to request benefits for the protection of jobs, to pay benefits from the Guaranteed Workers' Benefits Fund to subsidise the remuneration of workers subject to economic downtime or reduced working time following an epidemic;
- The committees also added new provisions concerning the protection of Polish companies from hostile takeover. It has been recommended to extend the list of countries which will not require the approval of the UOKiK to non-EU countries but belonging to the OECD;
- The Act provides that entrepreneurs, including those in the primary agricultural production sector, affected by the effects of the pandemic will be able to borrow lower interest rates. The subsidies will be paid by Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego from the funds of the newly created Interest Payment Fund. Contracts of credit with surcharge may be concluded until 31 December 2020 The Act also provides for credit holidays, which will allow to suspend repayment of the loan to the maximum 3 months;
- the new rules introduce rules for a simplified restructuring procedure to enable the debtor to enter into negotiations with creditors without the need to formally open proceedings by the court, but with simultaneous protection against enforcement by creditors acting individually;
- The bill states, among others, that local governments will be able to allocate money from the so-called cork fund to counter COVID-19 and crisis situations. It will also allow the municipalities to pass on instalments in the educational section earlier
- the amendment gave the Police and the Military Police a new power to issue an order to leave immediately by the person applying the violence of the jointly occupied dwelling or a prohibition of approaching it. The Senate recommends: (a) to amend the rules on how to provide a violent person with a notice of order or prohibition, to draw up a protocol when leaving the apartment and the time limit for the court's examination of the complaint against the order to leave the apartment, (b) to introduce a complete ban on the person applying violence to a person affected by violence, not only at the place of residence and immediate surroundings;
- it was also found that, in connection with the Foreign Minister's Regulation of 8 June 2020 on the creation of voting circuits in the election of the President of Poland in 2020 for Polish citizens abroad, the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the European Union:
(a) the MFA is to supplement the composition of the electoral commissions abroad on a horizontal and political level with representatives of the electoral committees, including those tabled by the Rafał Trzaskowski Committee, and rejected by consulates in the UK;
(b) information should be supplemented when the sending of electoral packages has ended and how many have been sent by country;
(c) the Polish consulates should be "opened" in order to be able to provide electoral packages by voters in person;
(d) a special information line on the presidential election should be launched.
Further details on the law contained in the Crisis Shield can be found in our Guide: www.russellbedford.pl/services/anti-crisis guide