Kacper Partyka

Kacper Partyka is an attorney-at-law at Tax Legal Partner. He handles debt recovery against Polish debtors, from the first demand for payment (wezwanie do zapłaty) through court proceedings to enforcement by a bailiff (komornik), and represents businesses in commercial disputes. He acts for foreign creditors, including through the European Order for Payment and the European Small Claims Procedure, and drafts the payment and security provisions that keep disputes from arising. He advises in Polish and in English.

An unpaid invoice is not only a missing amount in the account. It ties up your liquidity, and it takes up time you could be spending on the business rather than on recovering what you are owed anyway. The longer you wait to react, the fewer ways there are left to get your money back.

I handle debt recovery from the first demand for payment, through court proceedings, to enforcement by a bailiff. The first weeks decide the most. The sooner the case starts, the better the chance that the debtor still has assets the full amount can be recovered from, so it is worth making contact at the first delay rather than after another promise to pay. You will also get an honest assessment of whether a given case will pay for itself in a reasonable time. If there is no prospect, I say so at the start rather than after two years of proceedings.

Commercial disputes are a separate group of cases, where what is at stake is not only payment but whether the relationship continues. Defective performance, a contractual penalty, a disputed scope of work. I represent you in the proceedings, and before that I tell you what can realistically be obtained and over what period. The most expensive case is the one won on paper, against a debtor with nothing left to enforce against.

Come to me before there is a dispute as well. Payment terms, security and acceptance procedures are agreed in the contract, before the problem arises, and it is those provisions that later decide how quickly you get paid.

If you are a foreign supplier with a Polish customer, distance makes all of this harder. Correspondence goes unanswered, the debtor counts on you giving up, and you cannot judge from abroad whether the company is still solvent. Two things are worth knowing. First, business claims in Poland are generally time-barred after three years, and the clock does not stop while you are deciding what to do. Second, there are EU procedures built for exactly this situation: a European Order for Payment (Regulation 1896/2006) can produce an enforceable title against a Polish debtor without a hearing, and the European Small Claims Procedure (Regulation 861/2007) covers claims up to EUR 5,000. I act as your representative on the ground, in Polish where the case requires it and in English with you.

Before I send a demand for payment, I assess the real prospects of recovery. The contract can be beyond reproach while the debtor has had nothing to pay with for six months, and a won case then leaves you with a judgment instead of money. So I check the other side’s solvency and say plainly whether the case can pay for itself, before you incur the first cost.

Recovering a one-off invoice from an unknown counterparty is not the same as recovering arrears from a regular client you want to keep working with. In the first case, speed matters and so does obtaining an enforcement order quickly. In the second, the point is to get the money without closing the door on the relationship. Which of those matters more to you sets the tone of the first letter and how quickly the case goes to court.

In a commercial dispute I say directly what there is to win and at what cost, counting the court fee, the costs of representation and how long the proceedings will take. Sometimes a settlement at 80% today is worth more than 100% in two years. The decision is yours, and you get the numbers from me before you take it.

In day-to-day support I point out the risks in commercial contracts and terms of business before they turn into a dispute. Most of the recovery cases I run could have been limited by a clause on payment terms, a contractual penalty or a form of security that was missing from the contract.

• Unpaid invoice or overdue debt that has to be recovered before the claim becomes time-barred or the debtor becomes insolvent
• Court proceedings and enforcement by a bailiff, where demands for payment have produced no result
• Commercial dispute with a counterparty, supplier or client: defective performance, a contractual penalty or a disputed scope of work
• Settlement and negotiations with a debtor, where an earlier agreement is worth more than a case won two years later
• Commercial contracts and payment security: terms, penalties and conditions of cooperation agreed before the problem arises
• Recovery against a Polish debtor on behalf of a foreign creditor, including enforcement of a judgment obtained abroad
• European Order for Payment or European Small Claims Procedure against a debtor in Poland, where the choice of route decides how quickly you obtain an enforceable title

Have an unpaid debt, or a dispute with a counterparty that is dragging on? Every month of delay reduces the chance of recovering the full amount. A first conversation establishes how quickly and how effectively your case can be resolved.

• Debt recovery
• Court and enforcement proceedings
• Commercial disputes
• Commercial contracts and payment security
• Day-to-day legal support for businesses
• Cross-border debt recovery

• Jagiellonian University, law
• Attorney-at-law, registered by the Kraków Bar Association of Attorneys-at-Law under no. KR-5471
• Languages: Polish, English