The long-announced amendment to the Criminal Code came into force on 1 October.  It toughens the penalties for most offences described in the Code, including corruption. For paying a bribe of PLN 200,000, one can go to prison for between 2 and 15 years, and if the bribe is over PLN 1,000,000 - for between 3 and 20 years. Such a threat of punishment practically excludes conditional suspension of the prison sentence, which is possible in the case of a maximum one-year imprisonment sentence.

Corruption refers to attempts to bribe any person holding public office. These include not only politicians, judges, police officers or notaries, but also employees of state-budget establishments, government agencies, public universities or state legal entities. Sometimes, also management board members of wholly-owned State Treasury companies are considered to be persons holding public office whose bribery gives rise to liability for these offences. 

The amendment also increases the penalties for other offences - for example, for falsifying an invoice or a group of invoices. If the perpetrator has made such offences a permanent source of income, they can go to prison for up to 20 years.      
 

Find more in the PRO HR December 2023