UOKiK charges Legimi over 14.99 zł paid catalogue and free trial button

The charges

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has charged Legimi, a Polish platform selling subscription access to e-books and audiobooks, with infringing collective consumer interests. The announcement was made on Monday, 26 October 2026, by UOKiK President Tomasz Chróstny's office. The case goes back to 2024, when subscribers complained to the office about changes to the terms of their service. The charges are not yet proven, and the proceedings will determine whether they hold.

The Katalog Klubowy change

In October 2024 Legimi launched what it called the Katalog Klubowy, a separate catalogue into which it moved part of the e-books and audiobooks previously included in the standard subscription. Readers who wanted to keep access to those titles had to pay 14.99 zł for each one. According to UOKiK, the change also applied to people who already had active subscriptions, including those paid in advance for a fixed period. The office says the terms in force at the time allowed titles to be added or removed, but did not allow part of the catalogue to be taken out of the subscription and moved to a paid offer. In UOKiK's view, that limited a service consumers had already paid for.

Chróstny framed the case in terms of contract trust.

“In books we like unexpected plot twists, in contracts, not any more. When you pay a subscription, you have the right to know what you will get in return.”

He added that a business may not rewrite the rules in the middle of a contract, least of all at its customers' expense.

The free trial button

The office also has concerns about how the three-day free trial was started. Users began it by clicking a button labelled "Zamawiam", which did not clearly state that unless they cancelled before the trial ended, access would automatically become a paid subscription. UOKiK says the law requires a button used to conclude a contract to make the payment obligation clear. Information about later charges placed elsewhere on the service does not replace that labelling.

Possible penalty and the company's position

If the charges are confirmed, Legimi could face a fine of up to 10% of its annual turnover, according to UOKiK. Parkiet estimated, based on last year's results, that the penalty could reach about 11 million zł. When the changes were introduced in 2024, many users announced they would stop using the platform once their subscriptions lapsed, according to epoznan.pl. At that time the company linked the changes to the need to adapt to an amendment of the copyright law and to settle differently with authors. Legimi's reaction to the new charges has not yet been published.