The Sim hits the supermarket. Farmers must be protected from unfair network practices

sigm On Friday, it passed a law setting out rules and procedures for countering unfair practices using a contract advantage. The goal of the new regulations is to better protect agricultural producers, for example, than large retail chains.

443 deputies voted in favor of the bill, five opposed it, and one abstained. Now the law will be put on the agenda Senate. MEPs previously supported two proposed amendments to the Law and Justice Act’s half of the amendment. However, the changes proposed by other clubs were rejected. The Polish alliance wanted, inter alia, to reduce the payment time for producers of perishable products to 14 days.

It was also suggested that fines to be paid by companies whose interest is dishonestly used should not be The state budgetBut for promotion fund. This action will allow funds from sanctions to flow directly to the aggrieved party farmers.

The Ministry of Agriculture explained that some of the amendments proposed by the opposition would be inconsistent with EU or national regulations already in place. The new regulations define rules and procedures to counteract unfair practices using contractual advantage.

Compared with applicable law, the project offers greater powers to Competition and Consumer Protection Office. What is the contractual advantage? In the sense of the law, this is the occurrence of a large disparity in the economic potential of the buyer with respect to the supplier or the supplier with respect to the buyer.

It goes, among others o take advantage of the advantage of retail chains over suppliers of agricultural products or food processors who are usually segmented.

They talked about this disparity in mid-September Fruit growers protest in Warsaw. They argued that they were forced out into the street by the actions of commercial networks, including Pedronka, who demand that Polish apple suppliers pledge to provide fruit continuously until the end of August 2022 at fixed and, in their opinion, extremely low prices. .

Farmers argued that for them this would mean a sale at a price “significantly less than PLN 1 per kilogram”. Now they sell apples for 0.70 PLN with a maximum of 1.5 PLN. while production cost They estimate about 2 zlotys.

By selling at half price, they don’t cover expenses, let alone profits. “We are helpless, we have a lot of production and we are forced to take part in all this,” the fruit growers said.

The amendment defines 16 unfair practices, 10 of which are strictly prohibited and six permitted, provided they have been clearly agreed upon in the contract between the supplier and the buyer. According to the new regulations, the president initiates the actions of unfair practices Yukik By virtue of his position.

Among the unfair practices is, among other things, the buyer’s cancellation of the order less than 30 days before the expected date of delivery of perishable agricultural or food products.

This catalog also includes a unilateral change by the Buyer of the terms of the contract in terms of frequency, method of execution, place, date or volume of total deliveries, or individual deliveries of agricultural or food products.