Abstract

The article discusses a new juridical category of “statutory interest for delay in commercial transactions” introduced by the Act of 2013 on payment terms in commercial transactions. Although the Act does not define that notion it indicates when the interest is due and how to determine its rate which – importantly – is higher than statutory interest for delay provided for in the Civil Code. The prerequisites for payment of statutory interest for delay in commercial transactions are laid down in Art. 6, 7 and 8 of the Act. Those provisions refer to – respectively – unlimited payment liabilities (Art. 6) and time limited liabilities with the debtor being a public entity (Art. 8) or other entity (Art. 7). One of the premises for demanding interest, common to all cases regulated in the Act and absent in the Civil Code, is that the creditor demanding such interest is required to have fulfilled their own non-pecuniary performance. However, this gives rise to a doubt as to the amount of interest due in a commercial transaction under which the non-pecuniary performance has not been fulfilled because the parties have agreed on a prepayment which is not, however, paid on time.

Analysing this and other questions connected with the current regulation the authors conclude that the amended provisions in force as of 1 January 2016 have put the matter of interest due in commercial transactions significantly in order. They also defend a thesis that regardless of certain doubts signalled in the article all references made in Art. 6, 7 and 8 of the Act to statutory interest for delay in commercial transactions should be jointly perceived as special cases of interest for delay understood as a penalty for failure to observe the time limit for payment of a pecuniary performance. Therefore, such cases fit into the general construction provided for in Art. 481 § 1 of the Civil Code and there is no reason for treating them in any case as a totally new type of interest different from interest for delay and interest on capital.