How should grant-funded works be settled when the rules used to assess costs change after agreements have been signed?
Contractors challenge the settlement of grant payments
At least 81 lawsuits have been brought against Poland’s provincial environmental protection funds in connection with the Clean Air programme, according to Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. Contractors are challenging how applications for grant payments have been assessed, while the funds point to the results of thousands of inspections. The Kielce fund has been sued 17 times, while the funds in Kraków, Warsaw and Lublin have each faced 14 cases. The fewest cases have been reported in Zielona Góra and Łódź. The source does not report a final judicial finding in the disputes, so the contractors’ claims remain allegations rather than established breaches.
The dispute centres on which cost rules apply
The central issue is the assessment of works carried out under agreements signed in 2023 and 2024. Sylwester Rawski, president of Pionier Energia, says funds are now questioning investment costs using new tables of maximum rates introduced after the programme’s 2025 reform. His complaint is that those limits did not apply when the agreements were signed. This illustrates a wider grant-administration principle: a payment claim is normally tested against the terms and eligibility rules governing the funded commitment, while later guidance can become contentious if it changes the practical basis for approval. The article reports the allegation but does not establish how courts will resolve it.
Controls followed changes to the programme
The funds’ challenges to payment applications became particularly visible during inspections carried out after recruitment to the programme was suspended in November 2024. The National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management told the newspaper that more than 37,000 inspections had been conducted under Clean Air since the middle of 2024, with financial consequences in only about 12 per cent of cases. The newspaper also identifies earlier design choices as a source of concern: in 2022, the programme introduced prefinancing when a representative was used and removed maximum-cost limits. According to Dziennik, the version operating from March 2025 issues decisions more quickly, a reported administrative improvement that does not settle the earlier claims.
IN NUMBERS
The cases place the funding mechanism itself under scrutiny: applicants and contractors depend on payment approval after work is checked, while public funds require controls against unsupported or excessive costs. The unresolved question is whether later cost benchmarks can be used to challenge agreements made under earlier rules. Until the disputes are decided, the reported lawsuits show why grant programmes need clear transition provisions when eligibility, prefinancing or rate limits are redesigned.
Reported from money.pl, 2026-10-19. The Tender Wire is published by Otnox.
