The National Public Prosecutor’s Office said Tuesday that all five had been charged in an investigation into the allegedly unjustified lowering of fuel prices between August and November 2023.
Those detained include a former member of Orlen’s management board who served from 2018 to 2024. The Internal Security Agency (ABW) carried out the detentions on Monday on the orders of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office unit in Łódź dealing with organized crime and corruption.
Prosecutors are examining whether Orlen managers abused their powers or failed in their duties by setting wholesale and retail fuel prices below market levels, potentially exposing the state-controlled energy group to major financial losses.
The investigation concerns the months before Poland’s October 15, 2023, parliamentary election, when the Law and Justice (PiS) party was seeking a third consecutive term in government.
Fuel prices at Orlen stations remained unusually low despite rising prices on international markets. At the same time, a number of stations reported fuel shortages, with pumps marked as out of service.
Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek accused Orlen’s then-chief executive, Daniel Obajtek, of personally directing the company’s pricing policy for political purposes.
“Lowering prices against the market just before the election and brazenly telling Poles there were ‘pump failures’ was no economic miracle,” Żurek wrote on X. He alleged that the policy harmed the company in an attempt “to save the party’s hold on power.”
Obajtek rejected the accusation. He pointed to comments made in 2023 by Donald Tusk, then the opposition leader and now prime minister, arguing that fuel prices could be lower and that a state-controlled company should consider the welfare of consumers rather than simply maximize profits. “If I am to be held responsible for Poles paying little for fuel, not just in 2023 but in earlier years as well, I will be honored,” Obajtek wrote.
The investigation was opened by the District Prosecutor’s Office in Płock in January 2024 and later transferred to the National Prosecutor’s Office in Łódź because of the scale of the case and the amount of evidence gathered.
In March 2024, investigators and Internal Security Agency officers searched Orlen offices in Płock, Warsaw and Gdańsk as part of this case and a separate investigation into Orlen’s merger with the Lotos oil group.
Investigators seized 73 gigabytes of electronic documents and about two terabytes of email correspondence. Prosecutors said further procedural steps were continuing and that more details on the charges would be released after they were completed.