The draftsman's contract
By : Juliet D. Golden
The bubble around Thomas Gamperl's world burst last year when dynamiting started in an abandoned quarry next to his 17th-century baroque castle near Swidnica in southwest Poland.
Gamperl is an Austrian fine arts and antiques dealer who started renovating the devastated castle in 1993. Since then he's turned it into a swank hotel and conference center called the Hotel Palac Kraskow that caters to deep-pocketed foreigners and Poles. He argues that the castle and quartz quarry don't belong next to each other.
"It's just not possible that my property is in a mining (area)," Gamperl said. He said that when he bought the palace he had no idea an active quarry was located just a half kilometer away. And since the quarry was never figured into any master plan of the area, its owners should not have been allowed to start blasting. For Gamperl, the mining operations are illegal and he has appealed to the Environment Ministry to have it closed down.
But to investor Flemming Sund Nielsen who, along with two partners from Denmark, has invested zl. 2 million ($444,444) in the Kraskow quartz operation, the quarry is operating legally under a concession granted in 1993 and Gamperl should have known about it all along.
"This area has already been a mining area (and it appears on) maps and everywhere," said Nielsen, president of Proventus, a Polish-Danish joint venture. "They should have been doing their investigating before," he said. "Not afterward."
Nielsen maintains that Gamperl is feigning consternation. He said that not only did Gamperl know about the mine as early as 1993, but that Gamperl's company, Gamko, gave its written permission for the mining operation to be set up next door.
Both sides are standing by their convictions in the dispute and each is involved in a drawn-out battle in Warsaw and in the local village hall to prove their cases.
Since the first detonations went off in the quarry last year, the conflict has turned into a Montague and Capulet-type drama complete with finger pointing and name calling. In recent months, quarry officials have blamed the palace workers for organizing local protests against the quarry, destroying warning signs and blocking roads leading to the quartz pit.
For their part, Gamperl and castle workers blame quarry management for carrying out blasts that interrupt the peace and quiet of the rural idyll that guests are promised. They also claim that the blasting endangers the lives of villagers and castle visitors alike and threatens the long-term viability of the hotel's business.
Short of staging an all-out war, both sides are looking to the Polish government and the legal system to resolve what's become an extended dispute. For Gamperl, his case is a litmus test for how well individual rights are protected in Poland. "For me the basic thing is, does the law function in this country or not," he said.
But the Danes are certain that Polish law will ultimately rule in their favor. "We have all of our papers in order," Nielsen said.
As numerous foreigners doing business in emerging markets like Poland have learned, however, property and development issues are not clear cut on a general level or often on an individual case level. This is something both Gamperl and Nielsen are learning well.
"This is an example of the extremely dynamic times we're going through," said Jerzy Hendrich, director of Commercial Property Services (CPS), a Wroclaw-based property consultancy. "This is an example of how changing a law affected the activities of the two neighboring businesses."
It is also an example of how loopholes that appear at the time a law is changed create opportunities for companies and individuals that happen to be in the right place at the right time.
According to Hendrich, who specializes in mining issues, strong legal arguments exist in favor of both parties. The way the government and courts rule in the coming weeks and months may serve as a litmus test for resolving conflicts between not only Polish businesses and individuals, but two international entities as well.
