“The main thing right now is the upcoming amendment to Act on Corporations,“ starts Kinstellar Partner Tomas Cihula, describing the situation in the Czech Republic. “The Parliament is considering proposals which seek to clarify some parts of the current legislative framework and that aim to ease the regulatory burden companies are facing.“ Cihula said that this overhaul was met with “approval from the business sector.“
“Autonomous vehicles are a bit more of a cool topic, though,“ Cihula says, smiling. “The Czech Republic has a very strong automotive industry and driverless cars are a crucial step forward. There is a proposal for an act to regulate autonomous vehicles and infrastructural plans to accommodate them on the roads, and there is political pressure to pass this piece of legislation by next year so these cars can hit the road as soon as possible.“
Another potential legislative change involves medical cannabis, Cihula says. The Czech Republic has legalized cannabis for medical purposes and there are “considerations to have the public health insurance reimburse 90% of its cost for the patients that use it.“ He adds that “there are a lot of companies active in this area that are looking forward to this happening.“
Finally, Cihula says, “it’s worth mentioning the new proposal for introducing collective actions.“ The main purpose of this newly-proposed legislation is to improve the position of consumers making claims against large corporations by pooling these claims and sharing costs of the procedure. This would also potentially provide a good source of revenue for the lawyers, he says, adding that “it is likely that the currently proposed legislation in the Czech Republic is inspired by the one in the US which is more claimant-friendly than the regime proposed by the EU.“ The proposed legislation aims to introduce “very broad discovery rules which would allow claimants to have extensive access to documents and data." It also seeks to enable both opt-in as well as opt-out regimes. “It is to be expected that large corporations will try and fight these changes, seeing as how it would potentially put them in a not-so-favorable position, so we can expect that the proposed draft will undergo some changes before it is passed by the Parliament.”
