POLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Rafał Waszkiewicz and Bartosz Pyzder, Sołtysiński Kawecki & Szlęzak
8.2 Settlement of Lawsuits and Confidentiality
The judge may express a view as to the intended ruling. The judgments and the decisions may be issued during the hearing or in a closed session. This is at the judge’s discretion but, as a rule, if the judge decides to close the trial and issue the judgment in a closed session, the parties should be informed and given the possibility to express their position in writing. 7.8 General Timeframes for Proceedings There is no legal timeframe for proceedings. In practice, the length of the proceedings depends on the type of case and the area under the juris- diction of the court concerned. It is estimated that proceedings in two instances in large cities take approximately three to four years, or even longer if the case is complex; in smaller cities, the proceedings take approximately two years. There are in-court and out-of-court settlements in Poland. The former may be declared inadmis- sible by the court when it is contrary to the law or principles of social co-existence or aims to circumvent the law. However, if such a settle- ment is approved, it ends the litigation. Out-of-court settlements are acts of substantive law and do not, themselves, have an effect on the trial. However, in an out-of-court settlement, the claimant may request the withdrawal of the claim and the parties may decide on the costs of proceedings. 8. Settlement 8.1 Court Approval
In-court settlements form part of the court files. The rule of access to them is the same as the general rules regarding access to a case file. This means that it may be available for third parties with the court’s permission. On the other hand, in-court settlements are not in the public domain
and are not published by the court. 8.3 Enforcement of Settlement Agreements
Court settlements are a title of enforcement. A clause of enforceability must be sought and obtained in order to enforce such a provision. This also applies to settlements executed during official mediation. On the other hand, an out-of-court settlement is a private contract. If a party does not follow the settlement, the opposite party has to bring an action (statement of claim) to the court and obtain a final and valid judgment to enforce the settlement. 8.4 Setting Aside Settlement Agreements Polish law strictly limits the possibility of setting aside settlement agreements. Particularly, the legal effects of a settlement agreement cannot be evaded on the grounds that evidence has been found as to the claims to which the settle- ment agreement relates unless the settlement agreement was concluded in bad faith. If a settlement agreement was entered into under the influence of a mistake, the avoidance of its legal effects can only be justified when the mis- take concerns a factual state that both parties believed was undoubted based on the agree- ment, and if the parties had known the real state of affairs when the settlement was reached, the dispute or uncertainty would not have arisen.
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