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***NEWS FLASH *** NEWS FLASH *** NEWS FLASH *** NEWS FLASH ***

On Wednesday, March 13, 2002 Poland’s Supreme Court reversed a ruling of the
Supreme Administrative Court which required that monies invested by foundations in
securities be subject to corporate income tax.

The case before the Supreme Court stemmed from an attempt by Poland’s Treasury
Chamber to tax revenues that the Foundation for Polish Science invested as p
art of its
endowment during the years 1995-1997. The amount of assessed tax was in excess of
$20 million.

Last year, Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court sided with the Treasury Chamber,
ruling that “an expenditure” of funds to purchase securities could not b
e considered a
furtherance of the Foundation’s statutory purposes. Inexplicably, the Supreme
Administrative Court ruled that the only place where a foundation could inve
st its funds
was a bank. Any other type of investment, according to the Court, would constitute “an
expenditure” inconsistent with a foundation’s statutory purposes and thus taxable under
Poland’s corporate income tax law. Wednesday’s Resolution of the Supreme Court
reverses this ruling.

According to Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s most popular daily newspaper, the Supreme
Court, deciding the case in its complete complement of seven justices, deliberated for
approximately 90 minutes, before rendering the decision. “In a short justification of the
resolution, the leader of the panel, Walerian Sanetra, confirmed that the acquiring of
securities by the Foundation falls within its statutory purposes.” A wr
itten justification of
the resolution should be available within a few weeks.