On September 21, 2020, on the website of the Government Legislation Center a draft law on handling complaints and disputes of financial market entities and the Financial Education Fund has appeared. The new regulation is intended to replace the existing law of August 5, 2015 on the handling of complaints by financial market entities and the Financial Ombudsman.
# what is the proposed law supposed to be about?
The essence of the change is that the existing powers of the Financial Ombudsman are to be taken over by the OCCP. The authors of the draft indicate that The main cause of consumers' problems in obtaining the necessary assistance is the dispersion of competencies between the various authorities and institutions responsible for consumer protection. Consumers often turn for support in individual cases to bodies acting in the public interest (OCCP, FSC), which, due to legal restrictions, cannot provide them with the expected assistance.
Also new will be out-of-court dispute resolution procedures. These are to be conducted by a Coordinator appointed by the OCCP President for a four-year term. He will perform his tasks with the support of his team.
# new law, existing rules
The law only covers factoring companies in a small part, as does the existing law and complaint procedure. For details, I refer you here. In contrast, there should not be much trouble for financial market players to adapt to the new regulations. In fact, the bill mostly duplicates the existing regulation. The deadlines for processing complaints will not change (standard 30 days, and in particularly complicated cases - 60 days). The maximum amount of fines imposed on financial market entities (up to PLN 100,000) will also remain the same.
# what to look out for
The planned law applies to financial market entities, and thus also to factoring companies. It is not a certainty that it will be enacted, as the draft has sparked discussions as to which authority should have the powers covered by the law.
If the bill takes the form of an enacted law, the main part of the law will apply from January 1, 2021. On the other hand, organizational and adjustment provisions, which do not affect the rights and obligations of financial market entities, will come into force sufficiently earlier. These circumstances are, of course, subject to change in the course of the legislative process which is ongoing.
