With hundreds of representatives of companies taking part in the survey every year, nominees include legal regulations adopted in the past calendar year that have a significant impact on the business environment. Comprising about twenty authorities on various disciplines, including but not limited to business, the Nomination Committee has selected five legislative acts on which experts may vote until the end of March 2018:

Regulation stimulating innovation on the financial market (the Payment System Act implementing PSD2);

• Legislative cut for fast-tracking construction (the Amended Construction Act);
• More prudent regulation of business (a Constitutional Court ruling on the electronic sales records);
• More efficient and effective court procedure (the Amended Code of Civil Procedure); and
• Tax regulations reflecting business reality (the Amended Income Taxes Act).

Votes may be cast at the offices of individual partners and the organiser, and at www.zakonroku.cz/anketa. The results will be available in the first half of April.

“The Act of the Year stimulates a discussion in the Czech Republic about how business should be regulated and raises awareness of the positive impact that entrepreneurs may have on regulation. Consensus and mobilisation are two things that the Czech business community is in dire need of, as is Czech society as such. I am pleased that such a great number of significant players in the Czech legal business environment are in agreement about the importance of the discussion, such as the Czech Chamber of Commerce and the Czech Bar Association,” says Tomáš Babáček, Chairman of the Nomination Committee of the Act of the Year survey and an attorney at Ambruz & Dark Deloitte Legal.

Czech Business Legislation Website
An intrinsic part of the project is ‘Law for Business’ – a web platform featuring articles, comments and experts’ opinions. Its purpose is to provide experts with a space where they can voice their comments towards the proposers of the bills. “However, the media and experts will also be allowed to use it,” adds Babáček.

“The Czech Bar Association greatly appreciates the Act of the Year survey. The Czech legislative environment is extremely hard to navigate: at present, there are about 10,000 acts in force. Some of the acts have long been outdated and not applied in practice, yet they remain part of the legal system. Given the absence of an official electronic statute book, the Czech legal system is very opaque,” says Robert Němec, Vice-Chairman of the Czech Bar Association, in commenting on the reason why the Association is taking part in the project, and adds: “The executive has fallen into a bit of a bad habit in that it addresses the majority of social problems by amending laws despite the fact that sometimes it would be more appropriate to consider a different solution as part of the executive. The ‘criterion of necessity’ is often neglected in relation to legislation. As a result, the actual legislative process is highly problematic as some acts are adopted in haste and not preceded by a due specialised discussion, which subsequently leads to the adoption of unsystematic amendments. New acts are subsequently often amended shortly after their adoption.”

“Legal regulation is one of the issues that has been troubling Czech entrepreneurs the most. Therefore, I am pleased that the Czech Chamber of Commerce has assumed patronage of the Act of the Year project. In addition, I believe it is very important to highlight the legal regulations viewed in the most positive light by entrepreneurs in the prior year,” says Vladimír Dlouhý, President of the Czech Chamber of Commerce.

“It generally applies that what entrepreneurs appreciate most is if the state does not excessively interfere in business and lets them carry out their activities in peace. Therefore, I consider it to be symbolic that one of last year’s most widely discussed legal regulations was the Constitutional Court ruling where the Constitutional Court acted as a negative legislator, suspending the launch of the third and fourth stages of the electronic sales records. We believe that the entire matter will be treated effectively and efficiently, such as by using the principle of a single flat-rate tax for minor entrepreneurs who would not, following its payment, be subject to the compulsory sales records,” adds Jan Mandík, head of the department for legislation, information and advisory at the Czech Chamber of Commerce.