Polish state oil giant Orlen has formally responded to a legal challenge seeking to stop its purchase of hundreds of local newspapers and websites. The firm says that the case is “obviously unfounded”.
In April, a court ordered Orlen – which is Poland’s largest company by revenue – to suspend its takeover of Polska Press, which dominates the country’s local media market. The ruling came in response to a challenge filed by Poland’s commissioner for human rights, Adam Bodnar.
Orlen has, however, questioned the validity of that ruling and pressed on with its plans, including replacing a number of editors-in-chief of its newly owned newspapers. Now the firm has declared that it believes Bodnar’s legal challenge to be “so obviously unfounded that [it] cannot be effective”.
Bodnar’s case constitutes an appeal against the decision by Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) to approve Orlen’s purchase of Polska Press from its previous German owner, Verlagsgruppe Passau.
He argued that UOKiK’s president, Tomasz 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,” said Bodnar. “In this way, they can transform the free press…into propaganda bulletins.”
However, Orlen has responded by arguing that “existing law does not provide for a complaint against the decision to grant concentration.” Moreover, there is “no legally convincing argumentation” in which “the issue of media pluralism” would be considered by UOKiK in the scope of concentration.
The company’s lawyer, Paweł Podrecki, says that Bodnar therefore “had no legitimacy” to appeal the competition decision because his mandate “does not include the initiation of proceedings that are not provided for by existing law”.
Podrecki also noted that the court’s interim measures were “perhaps the only case in the history of the Polish antitrust authority in which the decision allowing for concentration is questioned”. He added that neither party to the transaction would appeal against UOKiK’s decision.
The 120 million zloty purchase of Polska Press – which owns 20 out of Poland’s 24 regional daily newspapers, 120 regional weeklies, and hundreds of websites – was approved by UOKiK in February and completed the following month.
Orlen’s CEO, Daniel Obajtek, justified the takeover as part of a “new business strategy”. But a number of commentators and media freedom groups have raised concern that it is an attempt by the government to exert further influence over the media.
Figures from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS), including the culture minister, have hailed the purchase as part of their long-promised policy of “repolonising” the media by reducing foreign ownership and influence
Main image credit: Minale Tattersfield/Flickr (under CC BY-SA 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
