Following lengthy parliamentary discussions and an increasing number of complaints as to the quality of foodstuffs available on the Polish market, a significant amendment to the Act on Trade Quality of Foodstuffs entered into force on 18 December 2008.
This amendment introduces new provisions that will bring about a crackdown on foodstuffs that are labelled in a way that is misleading or potentially misleading to consumers, as well as a number of sanctions for infringement of the Act.
A key new feature of the Act is definition (for the first time) of the term "falsified foodstuff" as any product that is in breach of legal provisions relating to the trade quality of foodstuffs or specific regulations on modified products, especially if such modifications relate to labeling and aim to hide the true list of ingredients or other properties of the product in a manner that significantly breaches consumer rights.
In addition, further to the aforementioned amendments, breaches of the provisions of the act are subject to a variety of financial penalties. These range from the obligation to pay a fine equivalent to up to fifteen times the average monthly wage announced by the President of the Central Statistical Office for a given month, imposed in cases where a given entity refuses to cooperate with the Trade Inspection in proceedings relating to inspection of foodstuffs manufactured by that entity, to the obligation to pay a fine of up to 10% of revenue for the previous calendar year should an entity place falsified foodstuffs on the market.
It is as yet unclear how these amendments will function in practice, and whether they will have a significant impact on undesirable and misleading market practices relating to foodstuffs.
This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq
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The original publication date for this article was 14/01/2009.