Mirella Lechna-Marchewka | In Principle

The opportunities for using public-private partnerships in the Polish defence sector are attracting greater and greater attention. This is particularly evident in the context of the current challenges in implementing the Pact for the Security of Poland—Central Pomerania and the recommendations from the European Investment Bank for execution of key infrastructure projects. The Pact for the Security of Poland report was announced on 5 September 2025 in the Pomeranian city of Ustka. This strategic document calls for implementation of key infrastructure projects, including upgrading of seaports, expansion of transhipment terminals, and adapting road and rail networks for military transport.

The EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation entered into force in July 2023. The first case in which the European Commission will decide what impact non-EU financial support has on the EU procurement market involves a Chinese bidder for a public contract in Bulgaria.

On 24 August 2022, without any grace period, Art. 15r1 of the COVID special act ceased to apply. In Polish public procurement, this means a repeal of the ban on deducting contractual penalties and claiming them from a performance bond, which had been in effect since 24 June 2020.

The Public Procurement Law of 11 September 2019 improperly implements the exclusion ground for improper performance of a former contract, as it ignores the specifics of the Polish public procurement market. This error can be corrected by a legislative change or by a pro-EU interpretation of the existing law.

Special acts introduced in isolation from existing solutions distort good law. This can be seen in how the public procurement market in Poland has been affected by successive amendments to the Covid Special Act. Today a special act is unnecessary, and force majeure provisions will suffice. Instead, it would be useful to amend the provision governing claims for a change in the amount or method of payment for public contracts.

This time Mirella Lechna-Marchewka heading the firm’s Infrastructure and Public Procurement practices, discusses war as force majeure in the context of Russian aggression on Ukraine.

For the past two years, public procurement contractors have been forced to invoke force majeure to protect themselves from liability for delays in performance of contracts. We thought everything had been written about force majeure, but the war in Ukraine requires the invocation of force majeure in a different context.

Public procurement is the process by which public authorities – government departments or local authorities – purchase work, goods or services from companies in the market. Recent changes to the public procurement law brought many improvements.

The programme is a synthesis of important current events in the Polish economy and changes to Polish law, especially those that may concern management board members and affect the risk of serving on boards.

In Poland, the National Appeal Chamber upholds the effectiveness of the rules guaranteeing transparent and non-discriminatory access to public procurement contracts within the EU. Member states are required to ensure contractors the consideration of review procedures concerning the award of public contracts, as is clear from the Remedies Directive.

The coronavirus pandemic is already affecting contractors carrying out public projects and other contracts under the public procurement regime. With the dynamic development of the situation, there is a risk that negative consequences will go even further. The current situation affects not only the performance of contracts but also ongoing and future public procurement procedures.

The award of an in-house procurement satisfying the conditions laid down in Art. 12(1)(a)–(c) of Directive 2014/24/EU is not necessarily consistent with European Union law, the Court of Justice of the European Union held in the judgment of 3 October 2019 in Case C-285/18, Kauno miesto savivaldybè. This ruling is not controversial, nor does it change the principles developed over the years for excluding internal procurement from the regime of the procurement directives. Nonetheless, it gives contractors an additional argument for challenging contracting authorities’ decisions ignoring such basic principles as transparency.