On September 9, 2016, Citibank’s London Branch filed a claim as collateral agent for the bondholders of New World Resources (NWR) with the High Court in Ostrava in the insolvency proceedings of OKD. OKD owns seven coal mines in the Czech Republic, employing over 13000 people. The low cost of coal and the refusal of the Czech Government to bail it out led to OKD filing for a Czech restructuring process in May 2016.

Since the early Nineties, Czech insolvency legislation has undergone a number of positive changes. Creditor position improved, including that of secured creditors, and the protection of both the debtor and the bankrupt has also been strengthened. Moreover, with the new Insolvency Act effective from 2008, reorganization began to be more widely used in addressing bankruptcies. In Czech insolvency procedure, however, certain problematic areas still remain. One of them involves frivolous insolvency petitions filed by both creditors and debtors themselves.

In May 2015, the Czech Ministry of Justice submitted a draft amendment to the Insolvency Act to the Government (the “Amendment”).

I am delighted to present the third edition of The Issues, an annual publication brought to you by our team at CMS Prague. As is tradition, the articles will look at general legislative developments as well as new opportunities and legal issues that you will be facing in the year ahead. We also look at sector specific topics from across industries such as consumer products, energy, financial services, hotels & leisure, lifesciences, real estate and technology, media & telecoms.

Es war eine immer häufi gere Praxis der Gläubiger, grundlose Insolvenzanträge zu stellen, um einen Konkurrenten vom Konkurrenzkampf zu eliminieren. Auf diese reagiert die Novelle des Insolvenzgesetzes, die am 1. November 2012 in Kraft trat.

The Czech Parliament passed an amendment to the Code of Civil Procedure (Act No. 99/1963 Coll., as amended) and the Act on Execution Procedure (Act No. 120/2001 Coll., as amended). Most of the provisions of the new legislation will be effective as of 1 January 2013. The amendment will, among other things, significantly modify the rules on enforcement of claims in the Czech Republic, as it changes some of the existing methods of enforcement under Czech law as well as introducing new ones.

During the current economic downturn the number of insolvency proceedings in the Czech Republic continuously increases. The insolvency legislation plays a key role in insolvency proceedings. Given the tough conditions on the market, we are witnessing higher numbers of bullying insolvency petitions submitted against debtors.

In the last week of January, the Czech Government passed an amendment to the Insolvency Act, which was prepared by the Ministry of Justice. The aim of the amendment is to respond to the growing widespread practice of the filing of unjustified insolvency petitions by creditors. The amendment intends to allow courts to reject such petitions.

On 1 January 2021, an Amendment to the Czech Act on Business Corporations came into effect, which introduced changes in the area of corporate governance. These include changes to the liability of statutory body members in case of corporate insolvency, and changes to the conditions for disqualification of statutory body members from the performance of their office or from serving as shadow directors.

Liability of statutory body members in the event of corporate insolvency

In response to the anticipated economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, on 31 March 2020 the Czech Government approved the so-called ‘Lex COVID-19’ and sent the draft law to the Parliament for expedited legislative processing. This article focuses on the implications of the Lex COVID-19 on the insolvency proceedings in the Czech Republic. For wider implications of the Lex COVID-19, please see this article.