Source: https://www.docusign.com/how-it-works/legality/global/poland
Timestamp: 2020-05-28 19:36:15
Document Index: 301318165

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art. 60', 'Art. 66', 'Art. 78', 'art. 76', 'art. 100', 'art. 118', 'art. 163', 'art. 67', 'art. 12', 'art. 53', 'art. 29', '§ 2', 'art. 300', 'art. 1', 'art. 950', 'art. 981', 'art. 1037', 'art. 1048', 'art. 1052', 'art. 75']

Poland | DocuSign
How It Works › Legality › eSignature Legality Guide › Poland
Electronic Signature has been recognized by law in Poland since 2001, with the passage of the Electronic Signature Act.
What's Poland's Legal System?
Poland's legal system is a mixture of Roman civil law and Anglo-American common law systems. Civil law operates in areas such as family relations, property, succession, contract, and criminal law, while statutes and principles of common law origin are evident in such areas as constitutional law, procedure, corporations law, taxation, insurance, labour relations, banking and currency.
Under Polish law, a written signature is not necessarily required for a valid contract - contracts are generally valid if legally competent parties reach an agreement, whether they agree verbally, electronically or in a physical paper document (Art. 60 and Art. 66 of the Polish Civil Code), unless the law requires a specific form to conclude a given contract. Depending on the type of contract, Polish law provides for varying minimum-level formalities. Sanctions for not keeping the required formality vary—they can either cause the agreement to be invalid or make certain effects of a contract ineffective. If Polish law does not require a written form to be used, the "document form" is sufficient (e.g., a pdf copy, email, etc.). Wherever Polish law specifically requires a written form (with ink signature), a qualified electronic signature may be used instead. This is subject to the other party consenting to the electronic form being used, and sometimes technical limitations. However, qualified electronic signatures will not work if the law requires a stronger form (e.g., writing with notarized signature, or notarial deed).
To prove a contract is valid, the parties sometimes have to present evidence in court supporting the existence, authenticity and valid acceptance of a contract.
In Poland the eIDAS Regulation is accompanied by the Act of 5 September 2016 on Trust and Electronic Identification Services, which contains general provisions on trust services in Poland. The Act amended a number of Polish acts to ensure their compliance with the eIDAS Regulation by clarifying certain national provisions and eliminating the provisions that were not compliant with the eIDAS Regulation.
QES – declaration of will that requires written form (Art. 78 of the Civil Code)
QES - certain HR documents subject to civil law (other than Labour Code), such as non-disclosure agreements, employee invention agreements or privacy notices.
QES – license to industrial property rights (art. 76.1, art. 100.1, art. 118.1 and art. 163.1 of the Industrial Property Law) or exclusive license to copyrights (art. 67.5 of the Copyright Act)
QES - transfer of industrial property rights (art. 12.2 of the Industrial Property Law) or transfer of copyrights (art. 53 of the Copyright Act).
Handwritten - HR documents such as employment contracts, benefits paperwork and termination notices (art. 29 § 2 of the Labor Code) and any other documents for which the Labor Code requires an ink signature. Please note that while the provisions of the Civil Code are applicable to the employment relations (art. 300 of the Civil Code), in practice at the moment the Chief Labour Inspectorate (Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy), the body which supervises and controls the observance of the labour law in Poland, does not allow the use of any type of electronic signature in employment relations where ink signature is required. Therefore, the use of ink signature for such documents is required.
Handwritten or notarization - family law documents, such as wills, marriage contracts (art. 1 Polish Family and Guardianship Code), inheritance contracts (art. 950, art. 981 (1)) and art. 1037 para. 2 of the Civil Code), contracts waiving inheritance (art. 1048/1049/1050 of the Civil Code), and inheritance sales (art. 1052 para 3 Civil Code)
Notarization - transfer of shares or transfer or lease of an enterprise or the establishment of usufruct thereon (art. 75 (1) Civil Code).
As a Tiered eSignature Legal Model country, Poland supports the concept of a QES (Qualified Electronic Signature), requiring independent accreditation for those signatures by an approved certification body. While QES is only legally required for limited types of transactions, as previously discussed, Poland, as a member of the European Union, follows ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) standards to define the technical requirements for a QES. In addition, pursuant to Article 137 of the Act of 5 September 2016 on Trust and Electronic Identification Services, as of 1 July 2018, the algorithm of the SHA-1 abbreviation function used for QES, AES, or advanced electronic seals should be replaced by the SHA-2 abbreviation function algorithm, unless technical requirements resulting from executive acts issued on the basis of the eIDAS Regulation 910/20141 exclude the possibility of using this abbreviation function. In compliance with the EU Directive 1999/93/EC on Electronic Signatures, Poland maintains a publicly accessible list of supervisory bodies for qualified certificated providers together with other countries in the European Union.
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