A court in Poland has suspended the purchase of hundreds of local newspapers and websites by state oil giant Orlen. The decision was put in place while the court waits to consider a challenge against the competition watchdog’s authorisation of the takeover.
Last month, Orlen – an oil refiner and petrol retailer that is Poland’s largest company by revenue – completed its 120 million zloty move to buy Polska Press – the biggest player in Poland’s local media market – from its German owner.
The development has been hailed by figures from the national-conservative ruling party as a step towards reducing foreign influence. Critics, however, see it as another move by the government to exert greater control over the media.
Among those who have opposed the takeover is Poland’s commissioner for human rights, Adam Bodnar. Last month, he filed an appeal against the 5 February decision by Tomasz Chróstny, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK), to approve the purchase.
Bodnar said that Chróstny had “not explained whether, as a result of concentration on the relevant market, competition will be significantly limited…[and] there will be an unacceptable restriction on freedom of the press and consequently of freedom of expression and of obtaining and disseminating information”.
“A company controlled by the state treasury – and through it the politicians exercising power – can easily influence the activities of individual editorial offices,” noted Bodnar, cited by Wirtualne Media. “In this way, they can transform the free press…into propaganda bulletins.”
In response, Chróstny called Bodnar’s claims “incomprehensible”. He said that his “decision on the takeover of Polska Press by PKN Orlen was preceded by a thorough analysis of the effects that concentration may have on the state of competition on the analysed markets”.
Today, however, Bodnar’s office announced that it had been informed by the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection in Warsaw that, in a ruling issued on 8 April, it had accepted his motion to suspend the takeover.
The interim ruling stops Orlen from exercising its ownership rights over Polska Press, said the statement. In the meantime, Chróstny has three months to either pass Bodnar’s appeal against his Orlen decision on to the court for consideration, or to change the decision.
Orlen’s CEO, Daniel Obajtek, said that his firm had so far received no information from the court about the ruling, and that he was “amazed” it had been revealed by Bodnar. “We would be surprised if the court made such a decision without having all the documents,” he wrote on Twitter.
Sąd Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów uwzględnił wniosek Rzecznika Praw Obywatelskich o wstrzymanie wykonania decyzji Prezesa UOKIK w sprawie koncentracji – przejęcia przez PKN Orlen spółki Polska Press https://t.co/5DK81LHmrX
— Patrycja Rapacka (@PRapacka) April 12, 2021
Orlen moved late last year to buy Polska Press, which owns 20 out of Poland’s 24 regional daily newspapers, 120 regional weeklies, and hundreds of websites. It justified the takeover as part of a “new business strategy” to “strengthen sales and marketing” by gaining access to the 17.4 million users of the media group’s websites.
Commentators, however, noted that state-owned firms are under government influence, and that Obajtek – who as recently as 2015 was the mayor of a small town – is close to the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Ahead of the completed takeover in March, Polska Press’s then editor-in-chief, Paweł Fąfara, promised to continue producing “independent, honest and free journalism” as long as he remained in his position.
However, he was removed from his post last week and replaced by Dorota Kania, a journalist who has worked for outlets with ties to PiS. Orlen also appointed a new supervisory board at Polska Press at the end of March, reported Wirtualne Media. Its new members are associated with the oil giant.
Since PiS came to power in 2015, Poland has fallen from its highest ever position of 18th in the World Press Freedom Index compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to its lowest ever position of 62nd. State-owned media have been “transformed into government propaganda mouthpieces”, notes RSF.
PiS has long expressed an aim to “repolonise” the media by reducing foreign ownership, which the party claims is harmful to Polish interests. Last year, the culture minister, Piotr Gliński, called for state-owned firms to buy media outlets “wherever possible”.
After Orlen’s takeover of Polska Press, PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński hailed it as “some of the best news I have heard in years”. He said that, by allowing foreign, and mainly German, firms to control parts of its media, Poles had “deprived ourselves of our sovereignty”.
Most of Poland’s leading private media outlets blacked out their coverage for a whole day in February in protest against separate government plans to introduce a new tax on advertising, which media firms say would be financially crippling for many of them.
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Main image credit: Bartosz Banka / Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
