Many provisions in the draft law on the provision of electronic services require further discussion and analysis, particularly those concerning the scope of responsibilities to be assigned to the Presidents of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) and the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE), as well as those related to control proceedings, according to the Lewiatan Confederation.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) mandates the establishment of a new body, the Digital Services Coordinator. According to the proposal, this role is to be fulfilled by the President of the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE), while some duties are also to be performed by the President of UOKiK in Poland. The current wording of the provisions still does not address the concerns raised by the Lewiatan Confederation during the previous round of public consultations on the draft.
Assigning responsibilities to the President of UOKiK under the vaguely defined term “other matters concerning consumer protection” can hardly be considered as entrusting “specific tasks or sectors.” To avoid ambiguities, we propose assigning the President of UOKiK to oversee specific sections of the DSA, which would be consistent with the systemic division of regulations and the competencies of the European Commission concerning very large platforms and online search engines.
“Otherwise, the provisions could have the opposite effect, as most issues related to digital services would be assumed to concern consumers by default, assuming the user acts as a consumer if their status is unknown,” emphasizes Eliza Turkiewicz, an expert at the Lewiatan Confederation.
Moreover, the draft raises concerns regarding control proceedings, specifically the departure from the implementation of post-audit recommendation mechanisms, and the excessively short vacatio legis in the context of new obligations related to the enforcement of orders.
