POLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Jaroslaw Kruk, Joanna Bogdanska and Urszula Brzozowska, KW Kruk and Partners Law Firm
increasingly involve both wrongdoing by external actors and close examination of the victim’s own gov - ernance environment. Cyber-enabled fraud is now the market baseline One of the clearest developments in the Polish mar - ket is that cyber-enabled fraud is no longer a special - ist subset of fraud work: it has become the baseline. Public reporting in Poland continues to show that phishing, impersonation scams and other forms of computer-enabled fraud remain dominant, and that investment scams are also evolving in sophistication. That matters because many disputes now begin not with an obvious theft, but with a compromised com - munication channel, a manipulated instruction or a false online narrative that initially appears credible. For clients, the practical significance is obvious. The first question is often no longer whether the facts amount to fraud in legal terms, but whether the pay - ment path can still be identified and interrupted before the funds are layered through multiple accounts or channels. In that sense, many fraud matters in Poland now begin as incident-response exercises before they become court cases. The legal analysis remains criti - cal, but timing and information capture increasingly determine whether any legal remedy will be effective in practice. The broader regulatory environment also reflects that shift. Poland’s Act on Combating Abuse in Electronic Communications, in force since September 2023, was specifically designed to respond to threats such as smishing and CLI spoofing. This is relevant for fraud disputes because it shows that the surrounding legal and operational environment is adapting to the same risks that are now driving contentious work. Even where a dispute ultimately turns on civil liability or asset recovery, the factual background increasingly includes channels and behaviours that have already become a focus of public anti-abuse policy. Prevention and readiness are part of dispute strategy One of the clearest market developments is that cli - ents are beginning to treat fraud readiness as part of dispute preparedness. This is a practical response to the way fraud cases now unfold. Businesses cannot
assume that they will have time to build a response once a loss is discovered – by then, the most valuable opportunities may already be disappearing. As a result, more companies are reviewing approval procedures, payment controls, escalation rules, inter - nal investigation protocols and relations with external advisers before any incident occurs. This is particu - larly important for businesses with high-value transac - tions, complex supply chains, decentralised finance functions or extensive dealings through remote chan - nels. In those environments, speed and structure mat - ter more than ever. This trend is also changing client expectations of out - side counsel. Businesses increasingly look for advis - ers who can bridge the gap between litigation, asset recovery, internal investigations and crisis response. In serious fraud matters, the distinction between advi - sory work and contentious work has become less rigid. A firm’s value often lies in its ability to move seamlessly from urgent containment to longer-term recovery. Internal fraud – a major source of contentious work Although digital scams and external fraud attract the most attention, internal fraud remains a major part of contentious work in Poland. Some of the most dif - ficult cases are not the ones involving anonymous fraudsters, but the ones involving senior employees, shareholders or long-standing business partners. These matters are often more complicated than they first appear. They may involve side arrangements, undisclosed conflicts, procurement manipulation, hid - den commissions, transfer of business opportunities, misuse of corporate assets or payments that were for - mally authorised but substantively improper. In many cases, the documents appear regular but the problem lies in the purpose behind them or in the relationships between the people involved. That creates a different type of challenge for clients, as the company may have to investigate while still operating the business. It may need to deal with employment, governance and shareholder issues at the same time. It may also need to re-evaluate how
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