Abstract

The provisions of the Act of 8 March 2013 on payment terms in commercial transactions have profoundly affected the matter covered by the Civil Code, especially since its amendment of 1 January 2016. In particular, it provides for a new and separate type of interest – statutory interest for delay in commercial transactions. Therefore, differentiation between relations qualified as commercial transactions and other legal relations to which the provisions of the Act do not apply is of special importance. In commercial transactions, the application of statutory interest has been wholly excluded as of 31 December 2015. Until then, every creditor could have claimed statutory interest in every obligational relation if there was any delay on the part of the debtor in making monetary performance. The obligation to make the abovementioned differentiation rests on legal protection authorities (courts of law) which adjudge interest – either statutory interest for delay or statutory interest for delay in commercial transactions. The in-depth analysis of the provisions of the Act on payment terms in commercial transactions shows that the task is very complicated because unsuitable terminology has been used in the Act. This gives rise to doubts as to the the scope of application of the Act on payment terms in commercial transactions, which is a much undesirable phenomenon given the degree of interference of the Act in the Civil Code and in everyday law application practice. The Article aims to discuss the aforementioned problems and also provides an attempt to solve them.