The Warsaw Court of Appeal ruled that a claim by 15 publishers against the administrator of the website Chomikuj.pl, FS File Solutions, represented by Wierzbowski Eversheds, cannot be heard under the Act on Pursuit of Claims in Group Proceedings of 17 December 2009. The order of the court is legally final.

The dispute began on 15 November 2012 with filing of a statement of claim against FS File Solutions by Wolters Kluwer Polska, appearing in the case as the representative of a group of 15 publishers. The publishers asserted claims based on alleged copyright infringement by Chomikuj.pl. The regional court ruled that the case could be heard as a class action under the Act on Pursuit of Claims in Group Proceedings of 17 December 2009. FS File Solutions appealed against that ruling to the Warsaw Court of Appeal.

As a result of the interlocutory appeal by lawyers from Wierzbowski Eversheds, the court of appeal upheld the position of FS File Solutions and finally ruled that the case may not be considered as a class action under the 2009 act.

“Although class actions have been functioning in the Polish legal system for over three years, they are still regarded as new and unusual in Polish courts, and the solutions offered by the act are still being tested in practice by both plaintiffs and defendants,” said attorney Iwo Gabrysiak, head of the litigation team at Wierzbowski Eversheds, who has represented a group of 1,247 consumers in a class action against BRE Bank.

According to attorney Tomasz Zalewski, who heads the intellectual property and e-business team at Wierzbowski Eversheds, “The class action against Chomikuj.pl was precedent-setting at the very least because the plaintiffs were businesses, not consumers. It is also clear from this example that the class action procedure is governed by its own rules”.

The client was represented at all stages of the proceeding by lawyers from the litigation, intellectual property and ebusiness teams at Wierzbowski Eversheds.