Archives

EU Sanctions Against Russia

The EU first adopted restrictive measures against the Russian Federation back in 2014, in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol and the destabilisation of Ukraine. Since then, the EU has massively expanded the sanctions, following Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine and its decision to recognise the non-government-controlled areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as … Continue Reading

Cross-border reorganizations in the EU: how will the new rules affect the process?

Cross-border mergers have become an integral part of corporate restructurings within the EU internal market. Groups have been taking advantage of the harmonized rules to move or consolidate operations, ownership of assets and liabilities across the member states – for instance, many corporations used cross-border mergers to reorganise their structures as a result of Brexit.  … Continue Reading

UPC is Coming: Companies with Business Interests in Europe to Assess the Patent Portfolios

It is expected that the Unified Patent Court (UPC),  the proposed common patent court in the EU, will be operational as of spring 2022. The UPC will provide an efficient forum for the enforcement of patents in Europe, ending the need for parallel litigation in different member states of the EU. It will also harmonize … Continue Reading

Covid-19 Prevention at the Workplace: Is Temperature Measuring Permissible?

Ensuring occupational safety and protecting employees’ health have been of the utmost importance for many employers over the past few weeks.  With the rapid spread of Covid-19, employers were forced to adopt strict preventive measures to ensure a safer working environment within their workplaces. While the most obvious solution was the adoption of home office … Continue Reading

Czech FDI Screening Bill – Get Ready For New Regulatory Challenges

As we recently observed in many states across the EU, national lawmakers have been coming up with bills that put in place mandatory non-EU FDI (foreign direct investment) approval requirements. The purpose of this legislation is to give state authorities competence to assess risks to national interests arising from such FDI and, if necessary, take … Continue Reading

COVID-19: Your Employment-related Questions Answered – Czech Republic

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spreads worldwide, businesses in the Czech Republic face practical and legal employment challenges as they take measures to further the immediate goal of preventing the spread of physical infection to and within their workforces. This insight includes questions and answers on how to handle the most frequent issues faced by … Continue Reading

New Whistleblower Protection in the EU – Time to Reshape The Compliance Programmes of Czech Companies

In October 2019, the Council of the European Union formally adopted a new Directive for the Protection of Whistleblowers, requiring both private and public organisations to create safe channels for reporting across a wide range of areas, including public procurement, financial services or money laundering. Member States will have two years to transpose the Directive … Continue Reading

A Christmas gift from the Czech Government – Will the New Czech Building Act speed up the construction permitting process and help boost residential construction?

The Czech government has published draft of the new Building Act as a major tool to speed up the construction permitting process in the Czech Republic. The Czech Ministry of Regional Development set a deadline until Christmas 2019 for any comments or objections to the prepared draft bill. The bill was prepared not long after … Continue Reading

New era for the Czech Republic’s eGovernment services – BankID is on the horizon

The framework of digital identity is about to be revolutionized in the Czech Republic. A group of deputies is proposing a bill that will allow banks to participate in the state digital identity scheme. Bank ID is intended to be used to access eGovernment services but also some services in the private sector.… Continue Reading

Important Changes in Czech Corporate Law Introduced by the Proposed Amendment to the Czech Business Corporations Act

As of 1 January 2014, the Czech Republic has enacted new legal rules regarding the corporate law presented in the act no. 90/2012 Coll., Business Corporations Act (the “BCA”). Meanwhile the new regulation was settling in, the practice has discovered a number of gaps and shortcomings of the new law and thus the lawmakers has … Continue Reading

Another step forward towards the collective redress mechanism in the Czech Republic

Last year, the Czech Ministry of Justice published a draft Act on Class Actions (“Act”), which was created in the aftermath of European Commission’s proposal to enact a directive on representative actions. Although the European Commission’s proposal is aimed at boosting consumer protection in the European Union, the Czech draft Act goes one step further … Continue Reading

Digital Constitution passes the first round in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic

Recently, legislators in the Czech Republic made an important step towards strengthening the rights of natural and legal persons as “clients of public authorities” to the provision of services by public authorities in the form of digital services. The draft Act on the Right to Digital Services (“ARDS”), also called “Digital Constitution”, presents a revolutionary … Continue Reading

Is it safe?

Under Czech law, can a statutory body member of a Czech company escape from the risk of his/her liability, if a certain action (e.g. entering into a contract on behalf of the company) is approved by GM or the sole shareholder in advance? Directors of Czech limited liability companies and members of boards of directors … Continue Reading

High Court in Prague sheds some light over the definition of a significant part of an enterprise 

Like any other major change of legislation, the recodification of Czech private law in 2014 has raised a long list of interpretation issues. At the end of August 2018, the High Court in Prague outlined (since the decision has not yet been confirmed by the Supreme Court) an interpretation with respect to one of the … Continue Reading

EU Action Plan for the European FinTech Sector and its Polish Context

On 8 March 2018, the European Commission (EC) published its long-awaited new FinTech Action Plan. The EC understands FinTech to be technology-enabled innovation in financial services, and the strategy covers developments related to new technologies which are changing the financial industry and the way consumers and firms access services. At the same time, the action … Continue Reading
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