Abstract

1. One of the key causes for no development of public-private partnerships in Poland is a conviction that there is a very high risk of corruption in projects carried out by the public sector in collaboration with private companies. In practice, the so-called “fourth P” is frequently mentioned, which in PPP project is to denote the prosecutor.

2. Legal regulations concerning prevention and elimination of corruption in PPP projects have been scatted throughout many normative acts. Those acts have their sources in international law and in national regulations. Solutions concerning prevention and elimination of corruption have been contained in several legal areas, including: the Public Procurement Act, the Act on Concession for Construction Works or Services, criminal law, civil law, administrative law, local government law and labour law.

3. Of special meaning at the stage of preventing corruption are internal regulations used as guidelines. They are applied, among others, by institutions which provide financing for public entities, such as e.g. the European Investment Bank.

4. Interesting solutions for prevention of corruption have been provided in German law. Worth noticing are especially so-called compliance and corporate governance policies, integration contracts concluded between a public entity and all participants in the proceedings for the selection of the most advantageous offer, rules for internal organization in public entities such as: the many eyes rule, staff turnover, separation between organizational units of a public entity and anti-corruption registers.

5. In order to create a cohesive system of prevention and elimination of corruption in PPP projects in Poland it is worth considering to intensify work connected with education as well as implementation of guidelines and compliance policies, also at the level of individual public entities. Such measures are aimed primarily at preventing the emergence of corruption mechanisms.