Abstract

The admissibility of entrusting public works to private companies, which has been known since the Antiquities, usually results from limited financial and organizational abilities to satisfy growing collective needs. In Poland, in the times of socialism, public works and service concessions were considered to be a bourgeois anachronism. Not only the regulations and traditions, but also the good business practices shaped since the latter half of the Middle Ages faded away. Therefore, numerous challenges are nowadays connected with reactivating those contracts in practice, especially at the beginning the need to create efficient legal regulations, responsible jurisdiction and official promotion of concession contracts. The structure of a public works concession contract is complex. Prior to its conclusion, it is necessary to carry out extended due diligence, as well as a technical dialogue with potential concessionaries so as to set optimum concession terms sufficiently safeguarding public interest and allowing for proper long-term cooperation of the parties. Because of the absence of an exhaustive statutory regulation of the rights and duties of the parties, as well as the uncertainty as to which code provisions are to be applied subsidiarily, it is necessary to introduce detailed clauses directly into the contract, thus limiting potential interpretational doubts.