Copyright is a bundle of exclusive rights falling under the umbrella of Intellectual Property (IP) law. The purpose of copyright is to protect creative effort carried out by a natural person (author) expressed in a tangible form and which amounts to one of the categories of "work" as defined by the statute, some of which also require the work to be "original". The aim of this article is to draw attention to the issue of copyrightability of works that have been created illegally or that are on the verge of illegality. As this topic and the related issues are quite extensive, this article offers only a brief introduction to the subject and is by no means exhaustive.

In the run-up to Christmas, two interesting opinions were issued by public authorities that address some controversial matters frequently encountered in practice regarding cookies and telemarketing.

Contributed by PRK Partners.

The possibility of the employer to investigate whether its employees are vaccinated against COVID-19 was subject of heated debate in Slovakia. The prevailing view was the employer could not request such information from them as allegedly there was no legal basis for it in the Labour Code or other regulations. Surprisingly, such view was also supported by the Slovak National Inspectorate of Labour that claimed it should be up to the employees whether they inform the employer about their vaccination. There were also discussions whether obtaining such information by the employer complies with the GDPR.

On May 25, 2018, the personal data protection rules in the Czech Republic were substantially changed. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council – the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR – became directly applicable law in all EU Member States, after a two-year transition period. Thus, the principles of personal data protection in the Czech Republic, the rights, duties, and processing requirements are regulated primarily by the GDPR. 

Most of our readers might be familiar with Roman Pecenka as a Partner at PRK Partners. For years though, he has also been serving as the Vice Mayor of Podolanka. CEE Legal Matters spoke with him to learn more about his life in elected office.

CEE Legal Matters has been reporting on an increased number of deals in the Czech Republic’s logistics sector. We reached out to several Czech real estate lawyers to discuss both the drivers behind the spike in work in the sector and the challenges it faces in the country.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital evolution of clinical trials. Introducing new technologies and ways of working with clinical data, improving clinical data access, review, and monitoring processes, and making better use of the data for further scientific research are trends that are here to stay. Side by side with these developments come legal questions about personal data protection. The aim of this article is to shed light on the core legal issue in data processing within clinical trials: its legal basis.

Although in use long before, on January 1, 2018, a new type of equity funds – “capital funds from contributions” – were expressly recognized and regulated by the Slovak Commercial Code. These funds are considered a supplement to contributions to a company’s registered capital and may be created by all capital company forms in Slovakia, including joint stock and limited liability companies.

The current Covid-19 situation has changed many aspects of the business environment, and the resulting economic slowdown has prompted legislators worldwide to take measures to ease the situation for local economic players. Thus far, measures proposed by the Czech Government have generally only deferred tax liabilities and tax administrative duties, rather than eliminating them altogether. Of the few permanent types of relief from public duties, a proposal to abolish the Czech real estate transfer tax (RETT) is probably the most significant.

During the current pandemic crisis, courts in countries around the world have had to suspend their regular operations and have focused only on the most urgent and time-sensitive matters. Yet the first few online courts have been able to maintain regular service. This has led to a massive increase in interest in and awareness of online dispute resolution (ODR) and online courts among judges, arbitrators, mediators, and lawyers in general. The pandemic has highlighted the ability of ODR to keep operating in crises that impact physical operations. Suddenly Zoom and even email are being considered ODR technology because they enable online court proceedings and distant mediations.

Similar to other areas of human endeavour, healthcare is bound to undergo the inevitable process of digital transformation. In the last two years the Czech Republic has taken its first steps towards digitizing its healthcare system by introducing mandatory electronic prescriptions and electronic sick notes and is about to introduce an electronic medications record. Unfortunately, there has been little progress on other fronts. Moreover, the Ministry of Health has yet to complete its draft law setting common standards and rules for eHealth, and it is unlikely to meet its current goal of having the law go into effect in 2021.

Attendees to the 2019 CEELM Winter Party were cornered, over the course of the evening, and asked, without warning or an opportunity to prepare, what achievement over the past 12 months they were proudest of.

One of the challenges of introducing class actions to the Czech legal system is the finding of a proper balance between the interests of clients and those of attorneys. While the default position is that attorneys are to protect the justified interests of their clients and place them before their own (within statutory limits, of course), a careful balancing exercise will need to be carried out if class actions are to be allowed. While class action law is still at the stage of an initial proposal in the Czech Republic, this proposal is demonstrative of the direction the Czech Ministry of Justice intends to take.

In the 26 years since its launch in 1993 by Marek Prochazka as a Prague banking and finance boutique, PRK Partners has added offices in Bratislava and Ostrava and grown into one of the largest and most successful law firms in the Czech and Slovak Republics. That growth, the firm’s partners maintain, is a by-product of the firm’s traditions of flexibility, professionalism, and innovation, rather than the result of a predetermined plan.

Artificial Intelligence is, after distributed ledger technology, the new frontier for legal scholars, and many are working to define how important and significant its future development is and how it is going to shape our legislation, affect our judiciary, and transform our societies. Many are striving to outline new legal definitions of AI, propose novel legal subjectivity and liability for AI’s defects or damage, or reframe ethical principles that AI has to follow, once we finally create it and release it to the world.

The Czech Republic was one of the first countries in Europe to allow the use of cannabis for medical purposes. This was achieved in 2013 by means of an amendment to the Act on Pharmaceuticals, which was subsequently implemented by the “Cannabis Regulation.” Despite this, access to medical cannabis still remains difficult for many patients.

On March 28, 2019 the Slovak parliament adopted Act No. 91/2019 Coll. on Unfair Conditions in Food Trade, which completely replaces previous legislation on the subject.