Abstract

The subject of this publication is the so-called public compensation, i.e. an institution created in the jurisprudence of the President of the Competition and Consumer Protection Office (UOKiK) that is used to describe an obligation placed on entrepreneurs to pay certain amounts of money to consumers. The competence to impose such obligations by a public administration body has been widely contested in the doctrine, citing various arguments that show lack of legal basis for its use by the UOKiK’s President. The years of the courts’ failure to notice the problems related to this institution have recently come to an end as a growing number of judgments overturning the decisions on public compensation have been issued. The aim of the publication is to draw the reader’s attention to this doubtless breakthrough in jurisprudence and to analyse the arguments raised by the courts in this matter.