Discontinued proceedings against former members of management board and supervisory board of PKP Cargo S.A.

We are pleased to announce that on 4 October 2024, the Regional Court in Warsaw discontinued proceedings conducted against 13 former members of the management board and supervisory board of PKP Cargo S.A. The discontinuance stemmed from the withdrawal of the indictment by the prosecutor’s office and resulted in the final conclusion of the case and the board members of PKP Cargo S.A. being found not guilty.

The proceedings concerned circumstances related to a transaction involving the purchase by PKP Cargo S.A. of 80% of the shares in AWT B.V., a Czech company, in December 2014, and was certainly one of the most notorious and precedent-setting (in terms of the principles of criminal liability of managers) commercial criminal proceedings in recent years. According to the original allegations of the regional prosecutor’s office in Lublin, the actions of the managers of PKP Cargo S.A. allegedly resulted in an ‘overpayment’ for the shares in the Czech company and, in the absence of the confirmation of such actions, charges were filed against them, including payment of allegedly undue remuneration (contractually agreed) to the chief transaction advisor, as well as exercising excessive caution in the form of over-insuring the transaction.

The following attorneys defended four former members of the management board and a member of the supervisory board of PKP Cargo S.A.: Karina Aust-Niewiadomska (partner), Krzysztof Sajchta (partner), and Maria Szczepańska (counsel).