Amendment to the Act on Maritime Areas

Most important changes introduced by the amendment are the following:

1. The content of the seabed permit decision

The Minister will have the possibility to impose additional obligations on the applicant in the Seabed Permit decision in relation to the criteria of the competitive proceeding for which the applicant received points. These additional obligations will be binding for the applicant.

2. The possibility of modification of the application

A modification of the application with respect to:

• the type of the planned project,
• the proposed location of the planned project going beyond the proposed location indicated in the original application,
• the characteristic technical parameters of the planned project going beyond the limits indicated in the original application, or
• the value of the planned project

will be treated as the submission of a new application and the withdrawal of the original application.

This means that the applicants will not be able to modify their application with respect to these issues after entry into force of the amendment in case they still want to participate in the contest.

3. The possibility of submitting documents for the competitive procedure via cloud solution

The information and documents for the competitive proceedings may be submitted also via cloud solution. The applicant should send a link to the cloud in the letter submitted via ePUAP. In the letter the applicant should name the information and documents in accordance with the names of the information and documents submitted by means of the cloud. Information and documents should be packaged in a single file and signed with a qualified electronic signature no later than the time of sending the letter. The applicant is obliged to ensure that the information and documents submitted in this manner are available for retrieval by the Minister of Infrastructure for at least 30 days from the date on which the letter with the link was sent.

4. A tie – the following solutions apply in case of a tie in scored points

1. In case more than one applicant is selected in the competitive proceeding (i.e. the applicants have the same highest number of points) the applicant who for the higher number of the evaluation criteria scored the higher number of points is selected as a winner.
2. In case more than one applicant is selected pursuant to point (1), the winner will be the applicant who scored the higher number of points for the most important evaluation criterion (for the current 11 proceedings the financial criterion is the most important one) from among the applicants selected in accordance with paragraph (2).
3. In case more than one applicant is selected pursuant to point (2), the winner will be the applicant whose seabed permit application shows a lower ratio (in other words proportion) of the value of the planned project to the maximum installed capacity of the offshore wind farm.

5. Publication of the results

The MA Act prescribes that the applicants who reached qualification minimum will be published in descending order with respect to their scoring. The draft amendment specifies that in case there was a tie the applicants also will be listed in the descending order, taking into account the principles set out in the provisions on settlement of a tie, with indication of the applicant selected as a winner.