POLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Michał Wołoszański, Łukasz Kudela and Marta Solarska-Kaleńczuk, Wołoszański & Partners
Polish Enforcement In Poland, enforcement of the MiCA market-abuse regime will depend on the Polish implementing leg- islation designating KNF and setting out domestic supervisory powers and sanctions. Under the imple- menting bill in its current form, infringements may be sanctioned by KNF with administrative fines and may also give rise to criminal liability. The final scope of these sanctions remains subject to the outcome of the legislative process. Until the Polish implementing act is in force, the EU MiCA prohibitions apply directly, but the domestic enforcement architecture remains incomplete. Financial Instruments The classical securities-market abuse regime under MAR continues to apply where a crypto-asset qualifies as a financial instrument. In that case, enforcement is conducted under the Polish securities-law framework, including the Act on Trading in Financial Instruments and the Act on Public Offering, which carry their own administrative and criminal sanctions. Historical enforcement against the Polish crypto-asset sector has been driven primarily by AML/CFT and tax authorities, rather than by a dedicated financial- services supervisor. GIIF and the tax administration have monitored compliance with the AML regime and with the obligation to be entered in the Register of Activity in the Field of Virtual Currencies, maintained by the Director of the Tax Administration Chamber in Katowice. Administrative fines are available for car- rying on virtual-currency activity without entry in the register, while significantly higher sanctions may apply for breaches of AML obligations. The Polish prosecu- tion service has also pursued criminal proceedings in connection with crypto-asset-related fraud, money laundering, market manipulation and the dissemina- tion of false information. 2.6 Non-Compliance Historical Enforcement Expanded KNF Toolkit Under the Implementing Act Once the Polish MiCA implementing act enters into force, KNF will have a substantially expanded enforce- ment toolkit. The third version of the bill, passed by the Sejm on 15 May 2026 and approved by the Senate on 21 May 2026, was intended to introduce significant
• certain utility tokens providing access to goods or services that already exist or are in operation. Marketing Communications Marketing communications must be clearly identifi- able as marketing communications, fair, clear and not misleading, consistent with the white paper and include the required risk warnings. General adver- tising, consumer-protection and unfair-commercial- practices rules apply alongside MiCA. 2.5 Market Abuse MiCA Market-Abuse Framework MiCA establishes a dedicated market-abuse frame- work for crypto-assets admitted to trading, or in respect of which a request for admission to trading has been made. Three categories of behaviour are prohibited: insider dealing, including trading on the basis of inside information or recommending or induc- ing others to trade; unlawful disclosure of inside infor- mation; and market manipulation, including transac- tions, orders or other behaviour that give, or are likely to give, false or misleading signals, secure the price at an abnormal or artificial level, or otherwise manipulate the market. MiCA also captures conduct specific to crypto-asset markets, including behaviour relating to the operation of the consensus mechanism where it is used to influence price or trading conditions. Differences From MAR The MiCA framework is modelled on the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR), but adapted to crypto-asset markets. The concept of inside information is framed for crypto-assets and their issuers, offerors, persons seeking admission to trading and CASPs, rather than for listed issuers alone. Public disclosure is also adapted to markets where there may be no tradition- al issuer infrastructure, and the market-manipulation prohibition expressly covers certain technology-layer behaviour, including consensus-mechanism conduct. This differs from the traditional securities regime, where inside information and market manipulation are linked to financial instruments admitted to trading on regulated markets, multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) or organised trading facilities (OTFs) and to the issuer- disclosure framework under MAR.
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