After further postponements, on July 1 this year, the regulations will finally come into force. It will introduce a new type of capital company to the Polish law – a simple joint-stock company. It is supposed to combine features of a limited liability company and a joint-stock company and contain some elements of partnerships.
For whom is a joint-stock company?
The authors of the draft of the new regulations assumed that the joint-stock company should respond to the needs of the dynamically developing market of innovations and new technologies. It should also be an attractive model of conducting business by startups. Above all, organizational freedom and a flexible asset structure are to help in this.
Possibility for shareholders to make contributions in the form of work or services
Thus, the joint-stock company comes close to partnerships. On the one hand, this solution is supposed to make it easier for people with only personal capital (knowledge, skills, know-how) to start business activity in a form of a capital company. On the other hand, it corresponds to the business model in which originators (thanks to financial support from investors) can fully focus on developing their ideas and putting them into practice.
Resignation from the institution of share capital
The role of the share capital of joint-stock company will be fulfilled by the share capital. Its minimum value is to be PLN 1. It will be funded only by capital contributions (i.e. other than the provision of work or services, etc.). Share capital cannot be specified in the articles of association. Consequently, it is not subject to the procedure of increasing and decreasing known in other capital companies. It is, however, entered in the register of entrepreneurs, which makes it obligatory to report any changes in its amount to the National Court Register. This construction refers to the European tendency to create legal forms that do not require share capital (or to set it at a symbolic level) present in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, and Ireland.
In exchange for contributions (of whatever kind) shareholders will acquire shares without nominal value subject to entry in the electronic register of shareholders on principles analogous to those of a joint-stock company. Shares may be disposed of in the documentary form. This is to facilitate trading via modern methods (e.g. mobile applications). Unlike shares in a joint-stock company, joint-stock company shares will not be subject to organized trading. This in turn determines the “private” nature of the new type of company.
Flexibility in establishing the company’s organizational structure model
Shareholders will be able to choose between the so-called monistic model and the dualistic model. The former has so far been known in Anglo-Saxon legislation. It involves the appointment of a board of directors (a single body that combines management and control functions). The second one – popular in Poland – consists of parallel functioning of two bodies: managerial (management board) and controlling (supervisory board). Nothing stands in the way of adopting a solution known on the grounds of a limited liability company. It is about establishing in the company only the management board. During the life of the company, it will also be possible to change the adopted model to another one, depending on the current needs of the shareholders.
Deletion of the joint-stock company will be possible without liquidation proceedings. This possibility will arise if the general meeting passes a resolution providing for the takeover of all the company’s assets by a designated shareholder with the obligation to satisfy creditors and other shareholders. But will the deletion itself be profitable at all?