Up until today the board of AWR Wprost has received neither a judgement of the Chicago court nor pleadings, demonstrating that the proceedings have actually been taking place. "We have not received any notifications, summons, or pleadings concerning this case," said Amadeusz Król, President of AWR Wprost.


It is true that a lawsuit brought by Mrs Małgorzata Cimoszewicz-Harlan and her husband had been under way before an American court in relation to an article "The Cimoszewiczs’ Conspiracy", which was published in “Wprost” in 2005. The case took place before a court in South Carolina and ended with a legally valid dismissal of the claim.
Then Mrs and Mr Harlan decided to bring yet another suit before a court in Chicago. AWR Wprost has not received any correspondence related to the case. Thus it is difficult to take any stance to a possible court’s decision. It can only be supposed that some dubious judgement was passed in a course unknown to the European judiciary. 
Bearing in mind the applied mode of proceeding and the fact that the parties could not take part in this case, it seems fair to say that the verdict was reached at variance with the principles of the law of Poland. Moreover, any possible ruling is not binding in Poland.

"The sentence passed by a foreign court, particularly the one outside the European Union, must be confirmed by a Polish court. Only then is it enforceable in our country. An appropriate motion is then examined by a district court, and then a complaint can be lodged and then a cassation complaint," explained AWR Wprost lawyer Maciej Łuczak. “In this case, except for other arguments, we can point to the inappropriateness of the applied jurisdiction as well as to the fact of depriving a party of its right to act abroad. This is the situation we are dealing with here. We are questioning the fact of effective petition delivery. We have not received any information about the proceedings in question nor have we received the verdict of the American court. Thus it is difficult to take a stance on the verdict, about which we have only been informed by a plaintiff, who is interested in a favourable court’s decision,” added the lawyer.

"It is also strange that the report about the verdict was widely publicised today, while it was allegedly passed in June, which is over two months ago," commented Amadeusz Król.

On Friday Małgorzata Cimoszewicz-Harlan, daughter of former Prime Minister Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, informed PAP about the lawsuit she won in a Chicago court. It referred to the article published in "Wprost" in 2005, in which Cimoszewicz-Harlan and her husband were accused of financial abuse in reference to the purchase of PKN Orlen shares via her father.