In media

In the latest Law & Justice supplement to Lidové noviny, KŠB attorney Jiří Horník contemplates how the much-feared Eurozone breakup could affect parties to contracts in euros.

Drahomír Tomašuk, KSB’s specialist in the field of electronic communications, IT and personal data protection, recently authored a contribution for the international publication The Technology, Media and Telecommunications Review, Second Edition, in which he summarizes the current state of the Czech telecommunications market.

Weekly magazine Ekonom recently mapped out what high profile Czech lawyers think about the hot legislative issues for 2012. Dagmar Dubecká, KŠB’s managing partner, gave her take on the amendment to the Mergers Act, which starting in 2012 aims to make transactions easier and cheaper for corporations and cooperatives by, among other things, allowing the decisive date of a merger to be set either retroactively or in the future. Prior to the amendment, this was not possible.

On 7 October 2011 Lidové noviny’s Law & Justice section featured the reflections of Martina Parusová Zímová and Christian Blatchford on the drawing of lots and whether such a practice is a legitimate way to reduce the number of bidders in public tenders. These two KSB lawyers do not consider the method transparent and non-discriminatory and believe it should therefore be removed from the Public Contracts Act.

The “Úplná znění předpisů (ÚZ)” Series has published a brand new issue dealing with the energy sector. The new “ÚZ ENERGETIKA” provides a summary of laws applicable to the energy sector in the Czech Republic and represents the first publication of its kind on the Czech market.

Martin Šolc, a partner at KSB, recently published his reflections on the highly publicized but rather unsuccessful fight against corruption in Hospodářské noviny’s Leaders Voice column on 2 September 2011.

On 29 August 2011 Lidové noviny published an article by KSB lawyer Christian Blatchford on the British Bribery Act 2010 in its Law & Justice supplement. The Bribery Act, which came into force on 1 July 2011, may have a certain impact on Czech corporations which have a business connection with Britain. Its impact, however, is unlikely to be as great as originally expected.

Czech newspaper Hospodářské noviny featured an article by Martin Šolc’s in its “Leaders Voice” column on 22 July 2011. In the article Martin reflects on Czech attitudes to law. Shouldn’t we be aware of the principles on which laws are based rather than yearning for more and more regulations to cover every eventuality? And does everyone sufficiently respect the law?

Václav Rovenský and Tomáš Sequens prepared a chapter focused on the Czech Republic for the international publication Getting the Deal Through – Gas Regulation, 2011 edition; the chapter summarizes legal regulations and conditions for business activities on the gas market in the Czech Republic. The publication was issued by the London based market analysis company Law Business Research Ltd.

On 6 June 2011 the Law & Justice supplement of Lidové noviny published an article on abbreviated construction proceedings by KSB lawyers Dana Čiháková and Petr Sedlatý. Even though the abbreviated construction proceedings were introduced in an attempt to simplify approval proceedings, legislative loopholes have resulted in fairly broad misuse. But recently, the Municipal Court in Prague issued a breakthrough judgment eliminating such misuse to a certain extent.

KSB partner Petr Kasík and KSB attorney Vlastimil Pihera published a brief commentary in the section Law & Justice of Lidové noviny on the award of the First Senate of the Constitutional Court dated March 2011 regarding the legal regulation of squeeze-outs.

In the international publication IFLR M&A Guide 2011, Dagmar Dubecká, Martin Kubík, and Christian Blatchford describe the current situation on the mergers and acquisitions market in the Czech Republic, including the legal regulation of individual types of M&A transactions and aspects of competition law.

KSB tax advisor Dalibor Bucek wrote an article on taxation of foreign income of legal entities for the weekly Euro. He addressed the decisive criteria to determine which country a company’s income is to be taxed in, how to settle an incorrectly withheld tax in a foreign country and how to take all these aspects into consideration when preparing a tax return. The whole article can be downloaded here (in Czech only)

On 4 April 2011 Lidové noviny published in its supplement Law & Justice an overview of the most significant changes to VAT that affect all VAT payers as of 1 April 2011 in connection with Act No. 47/2011, Coll., amending Act No. 235/2004, Coll., the VAT Act. The overview of the changes in VAT was prepared for Lidové noviny by law firm Kocián Šolc Balaštík. The whole article can be downloaded here (in Czech only)

KSB attorneys Petr Kasík and Juraj Hudák wrote an exclusive contribution on liability of directors and its specific issues in the Czech legal environment. The text was published in the international publication Directors’ Liability and Indemnification.