On 11 August 2021 the Polish Act of Administrative Procedure Code Amendment was passed by the Polish lower house of the Parliament after the Senate’s adjustment consideration. On 14 August 2021 the Amendment Act was signed by the Polish president and on 16 August 2021 was published in the Polish Official Journal of Laws. As we can read on the official websites and from the official Ministry of Justice statement (from the ministerial conference):
The amendment to the Polish Administrative Procedure Code protects the interests of thousands of Polish citizens who are uncertain about the fate of properties important to them. The provisions passed by the Sejm dismiss the spectre of never-ending claims against the State Treasury.[1]
This statement should be read in the context of the real estate’s reprivatization socio-legal problem, to which politicians have mainly referred. [2]
It
is worth to notice that this amendment implemented Constitutional Tribunal
judgement of 2015 (P 46/13) on the inconsistency with the Polish Constitution of
previous procedural articles and there are a lot of critical voices about
recent amendment, for instance here:
On September 13 and 14, 2021, KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI took part in two webinars, organised by Idea Growth (https://ideagrowth.org/), concerning the broadly understood i-gaming and sports betting, which are one of the core specializations of technology sector of KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI. Each of the webinars had the form of a short 1-hour condensed session conducted by the experts of the above-mentioned fields.
On Monday, September 13, 2021, the first webinar addressed
“the imperative of advertising to acquire customers while respecting
various state laws and prioritizing responsible gaming practices.”
The bitcoin currency has been experiencing its peak
moments for a long time. Many consider bitcoin to be an easy way to earn money,
and others consider it to be the “currency of the future”.
Unfortunately, this view may be in future verified, as can be seen on the
example of the Republic of El Salvador.
On September 7, 2021, El Salvador officially adopted
bitcoin as an official and legal tender, making the cryptocurrency an accepted means of exchange
for goods and services. The euphoria and optimism related to the changes did
not last long, because on the same day, there was a huge drop in the value of
bitcoin. Within moments on Tuesday, September 7, bitcoin’s value plunged 17%
and ended its decline on Wednesday by around 10%. Other digital assets also fell.
According to Kraken (the cryptocurrency exchange in general), Cardano’s token
(ADA) and the second largest cryptocurrency, Ether, fell 18% and around 13%
respectively. (As of September 8 at 5:00 p.m.).
publication date: September 30, 2021 – text updated onJanuary 23, 2023
It is currently accepted that only 5% of start-ups in the technology industry are successful. This fact means that, in principle, the investor has as much as a 95% risk of losing money. However, if the investment turns out to work with no failure the investors may gain millions.
The more
innovative the subject matter the bigger the risk
A good
example of a risky investment is a highly discussed case of Elizabeth Holmes.
She is the founder of biotech start-up, Theranos. The main concept of her
business was to create a blood-testing method which promises to detect a range
of illnesses with just a prick on the fingertip. She based her business idea on
her fear of needles. One device would replace professional laboratory machines.
The technology was supposed to revolutionize the healthcare industry. As this
idea seemed futuristic and innovative it
is no surprise that it seduced many high-profile investors that invested
millions into this business. Silicon
Valley investors have poured more than $200 million into projects in the past
years to build a device that analyzes blood – according to ‘Financial Times’. However,
in 2015 it emerged the blood-testing devices did not work and Theranos was
doing most of its testing on commercially available machines made by other
manufacturers. The company shut down three years later. Numerous problems have
arisen since then. The invention gave false results, resulted to undetected
diseases. As it later turned out, it was not the machine that tested the
samples, but a team of people appointed to do so. The machine was only an
object of advertising and marketing. Now Ms. Holmes faces 12 fraud charges and
she is accused of deceiving investors and patients with defrauding investors
through a ‘sophisticated, multi-year fraud’.
The
business obtained one of its first financings in 2004 from a well-known
investor from Silicon Valley, Tim Draper. Theranos founder began collaboration
with former senior U.S. government officials to serve on the board of
directors. Among them were: George Shultz (former Secretary of Labor, Treasury,
and State of the US government), Gen. James Mattis (US Secretary of Defense),
Henry Kissinger (former Secretary of State), William Perry (former Secretary of
Defense), Betsy DeVos (US Secretary of Education) and many other successful
individuals.
It sounds
surprising that highly respectable, influential people did not even ask Holmes
for detailed financial analysis and accurate product information. They have
lost millions of dollars because of being too superficial in their due
diligence.
Technology
transfer agreements as well as investment agreements are often accompanied by
source code escrow agreements used to secure the IP rights to the software.
Source code
The key of
programs and software is the source code. It is the fundamental component of a
computer program that is created by a programmer. The source code should be written using a
human-readable programming language – usually plain text. The main goal of it
is to set exact rules and specifications for the computer that can be translated
into the machine’s language.
What is source code escrow?
Sometimes it happens that even if special
software tailored to one’s needs is created by a professional company, problems
may arise. The investor needs to make every effort to protect company in the
event that the contractor’s company ceases to exist, for example because of its
bankruptcy or liquidation. In such cases, the solution to secure the transfer
of ownership of the source code is to put in place source code escrow
agreement. This is a service that helps protect all parties involved in a
software licence by having a neutral, independent third party escrow agent hold
the source code.
