Abstract

The publication constitutes an addition to Andrzej Szumański’s article entitled „The legal status of a shareholder’s spouse in a situation whereby the acquisition of shareholding rights has been financed with marital property assets (supplement to MoP No. 7/2015, pp. 31–39). The analysis of the current practice of shareholding companies causes that various interpretations of the relevant regulations, namely Art. 1831 and Art. 3321 of the Commercial Companies Code, providing for the reconciliation of the legal regimes of the Commercial Companies Code and the Family and Guardianship Code based on totally different axiological assumptions do not lead to satisfactory results. This concerns not only the infraction on the structure of commercial companies law or family law, but primarily the emergence of legal uncertainty, which in turn undermines the security of legal transactions. Given the fact that the marital property regime is of a statutory nature (Art. 31 § 1 of the Family and Guardianship Code) and therefore it decidedly dominates in Polish families, in non-conflicting situations between the spouses the above cited provisions of the Commercial Companies Code become almost redundant, theoretical and academic. However, the real social problem arises only when a conflict between the spouses, who have a statutory marital property, one of whom acquired shares (stocks) in a commercial company and paid for them with marital property assets, begins to paralyse the operation of the company. This is not only against the interests of the company itself, but also its employees, creditors or other stakeholders. This leads to a conclusion that intervention of the legislator is needed in this matter to cut the ongoing doctrinal disputes and divergence of views of the judicature with a clear legal regulation. It could be illustratively concluded that such a legal regulation is to be a regulation first of all for the times of „warfare”, not only for the time of „peace” (between spouses, of course).