Originally published in the Polish Construction Review – Issue No. 1 (130), one January 5, 2012.

Access to utilities (electricity, sewerage, water, etc.) is one of the fundamental conditions for being able to take proper advantage of a property. Interruption of supply causes significant inconvenience to the property user (owner, tenant, lessee, etc.). From the point of view of running a business from a property, the most dangerous are probably electrical power outages. This begs the question of what claims are valid in respect of the utility supplier in such cases, and on what grounds.

In the first instance it should be pointed out that the property user is entitled to specific discounts for interruptions in supply not in accordance with legal regulations, i.e. not suitably planned, and of which the client was not informed in a manner and according to the principles set down in law. Pursuant to § 37 par. 2 of the Ordinance of the Minister of the Economy of 2 July 2007 regarding the detailed principles for compiling and calculating tariffs and payments in trading in electrical power (Journal of Laws 2007 no. 128, item 895 as amended), “for every unit of electrical power not supplied, the client is entitled to a discount to the sum of five times the price of electrical power referred to in Article 23 par. 2 pt 18 let. b of the Act (the Power Law – MZ) for the duration of the interruption in supply of that power”. This regulation is a very clearly defined solution. It does not require of the addressee any complicated interpretations. Significantly, there is no need to prove damage, and the only circumstances that require proof are the fact of the power outage and its duration. Other positions adopted by electrical power suppliers, demanding proof of other circumstances before payment of compensation will be made, are in contravention of the literal reading of the above regulation, as the Power Regulation Office has indicated on many occasions. Pursuant to the position of the Power Regulation Office the above-cited legal regulations in their literal reading do not waive the power supplier’s liability even in the case of an outage as a consequence of force majeure. Current information and positions in this regard may be found on the Power Regulation Office’s internet site (http://www.ure.gov.pl).