INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN LAW ON POLISH COMPETITION LAW

Over a little more than the last twenty years Poland has undergone a fundamental socio-economic change. That period brought about a shift from a socialist economy to a free market model and Poland was eventually accepted as a member of the European Union. An important element of the reforms was the building of the competition law system, which was an unprecedented operation on a global scale. It should be underlined that the structure of the Polish economy was shaped by almost half a century of ideological monopolization and central planning, which made the introduction of competition law to the economical system a complicated task. The first part of this paper contains a description of the evolution of Polish competition law. Such considerations are a starting point for an analysis concerning the place of competition law in the Polish legal system and its comparison with the European standards. Further points of this article present both an examination of the influence of the EU competition law on the Polish case law as well as an analysis of the areas in which there is a need for further approximation of the Polish competition law to the European Union standards. Finally, general conclusions concerning the influence of the EU competition law on the Polish legal system are formulated. The author makes an attempt to identify the causes of the differences existing between these two legal systems.