HAVEL & PARTNERS, the largest Czech-Slovak law firm, has recruited another lawyer with experience from top judicial institutions and academia. Martin Kopa, a lawyer who previously worked at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Supreme Administrative Court and the Constitutional Court, reinforces our teams of lawyers specializing in the public sector, justice and legislation. At HAVEL & PARTNERS, he will continue to work in his fields of expertise, i.e. public law, constitutional law, administrative law, law of administrative transgressions, administrative and constitutional justice and legislation.
“Our law firm works for numerous private and public entities, which come into contact with judicial and regulatory institutions for various reasons. Martin has excellent legal expertise and experience perfectly suited for these types of tasks. In addition, he is a legal theoretician giving lectures and publishing in quite a few fields of law. He will thus support our legislation team, who comment on and draft bills and legislative instruments, amendments, intended subject-matters of laws, explanatory reports, legal opinions, constitutional complaints, etc. Last but not least, we look forward to Martin’s cooperation with the HAVEL & PARTNERS ACADEMY, which will benefit from his lecturing experience,” says František Korbel, one of the law firm’s partners, head of its legislative team, and director of its academy.
JUDr. Martin Kopa, Ph.D. (32) graduated from the Faculty of Law at Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, receiving a JUDr. (advanced Master’s) degree in 2011 and a PhD degree in 2014. Before he joined HAVEL & PARTNERS, he worked as an assistant to judge Ludvík David of the Constitutional Court (2016-2018), as an assistant to judge Filip Dienstbier of the Supreme Administrative Court (2014-2016), and as a trainee and later as a case lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (2011, and 2012-2013, respectively).
During his work at the Constitutional Court, he participated on preparing documents for the Court’s decisions, e.g. in the plenary matter of reviewing the constitutionality of inspections of stationary sources regulated by the Air Protection Act. At the Supreme Administrative Court, he worked on asylum and immigration matters, and participated on the preparation of documents for the Court’s decisions in many cases of administrative sanctions or in the matter of access to technical standards in construction. At the European Court of Human Rights, he addressed the matters of rights of persons accused in criminal proceedings and regulated rents.
From 2010 to 2018, he taught constitutional law, fundamental rights and some skill-oriented classes at the Faculty of Law at Palacký University in Olomouc. He has authored many expert articles on public law and legal education. In addition, he has authored or co-authored several monographs in these fields. His most significant publications include the monograph Doktrína prostoru pro uvážení v judikatuře Evropského soudu pro lidská práva (The Margin of Appreciation, Leges, 2014), the co-authored practical commentary on the Special Court Proceedings Act (Wolters Kluwer, 2015), the co-authored textbook Základní práva (Fundamental Rights, Leges, 2016), and his position as the exclusive translator and co-author of the Czech parts of the US bestseller Global Issues in Legal Ethics published in Czech under the title Globální problémy profesní etiky právníků (Wolters Kluwer, 2017), which was sponsored by HAVEL & PARTNERS. He is one of the editors of the commentary on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms (C. H. Beck, 2019).
HAVEL & PARTNERS as Czech counsel led by Latham & Watkins LLP has advised the consortium of banks consisting of Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch, Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft, HSBC Bank plc, Goldman Sachs International and J.P. Morgan Securities plc as initial purchasers of 3% senior secured notes in an aggregate principal amount of EUR 450,000,000 due in 2026 issued by Progroup AG on bond offering refinancing as well as the consortium of banks consisting of Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft, HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt AG, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A., Goldman Sachs International, Goldman Sachs International Bank, J.P. Morgan Securities plc, Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch, IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG, Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC, Goldman Sachs Bank USA and Wilmington Trust (London) Limited as finance parties in relation to several facilities agreements in an aggregate of more than EUR 600,000,000 (equivalent).
Progroup AG is a leading, family-owned producer and supplier of containerboard and corrugated board in Central Europe. Certain subsidiaries of Progroup AG based in Germany, Czech Republic, Poland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are co-obligors under this cross-border transaction.
The HAVEL & PARTNERS team which already assisted with preceding stages of the on-going financing during the last years advising on the Czech matters of the transaction was made up of Michal Ranostaj and Petra Bátovská.
František Korbel, director of the HAVEL & PARTNERS ACADEMY and a partner of the HAVEL & PARTNERS law firm, opened the book launch for Příběhy právních pojmů (The Stories of Legal Terms) by Professor Pavel Holländer, former vice president of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, in the Literary Café in Prague on Thursday, 3 May 2018. Pavel Rychetský, President of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, and Professor Aleš Gerloch, then dean of the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague, also came to support the launch of this book, which is one of the numerous titles co-funded by HAVEL & PARTNERS.
Příběhy právních pojmů waspublished by Vydavatelství a nakladatelství Aleš Čeněk, s.r.o. and is available in Czech book shops like the first Czech edition of the bestselling Global Issues in Legal Ethics (in Czech: Globální problémy profesní etiky právníků), another sponsored book launched on the premises of HAVEL & PARTNERS ACADEMY in November last year.
2018 is the fourth year in a row that HAVEL & PARTNERS has also been funding Czech and Slovak translations of books selected from the most successful international publications focused on leadership, management or marketing. Last year, for instance, the law firm supported the first Czech edition of the globally reputable book on family-owned businesses, Dilemmas of Family Wealth.
(Updates in regulating medical devices reimbursement)
After the extraordinary success last year in the Czech Law Firm of the Year competition, HAVEL & PARTNERS, the largest Czech-Slovak law firm, was also successful this year in the competition in Slovakia. It was rated a “highly recommended” or “recommended” law firm in eight law practice categories. According to the total number of nominations and titles from all the previous years of the Law Firm of the Year competition held in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, HAVEL & PARTNERS remains the most successful and the most comprehensive law firm in both countries.
According to the results, HAVEL & PARTNERS in Slovakia is a highly recommended law firm in the categories Development Projects and Real Estate, Telecommunications and Information Technology Law,Public Procurement, Tax Law, and Competition. In the categories Corporate Law, Restructuring and Insolvency, and Mergers and Acquisitions, HAVEL & PARTNERS was ranked among the recommended law firms.
“These results are further proof of our versatility and the exceptional quality of all the specialised teams that cooperate within all of our offices in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We want to continue to strengthen the position of the Bratislava office in the Slovak legal market. In Slovakia, thanks to restructuring and reinforcement of staffing, we returned to economic growth last year. We also moved the office to the representative premises of the new business centre in the attractive Zuckermandel district under Bratislava Castle,” says the firm’s managing partner Jaroslav Havel.
The Law Firm of the Year is a specialised competition evaluating the legal service of law firms operating in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It was first announced in the Czech Republic in 2008, and since 2013 it has also been held in Slovakia. Looking at the historical results of all the previous years of the competition, HAVEL & PARTNERS is the most successful and the most comprehensive law firm in both countries based on the total of all nominations and titles. The results of the competition in Slovakia for 2018 were announced in Bratislava on 10 April 2018 by its organizers – weekly TREND and EPRAVO.SK.
In March of this year, C. H. Beck Publishing has published a new book called Transformace a restrukturalizace podniku. Its co-author is Dušan Sedláček, partner at HAVEL & PARTNERS and insolvency proceedings and corporate restructurings expert.
The publication, edited by economist Jaroslav Schönfeld and contributed by insolvency administrator Lee Loud and economists Luboš Smrčka and Michal Kuděj, brings a very detailed view on transformation and corporate restructurings issues with an addition of extensive case studies dedicated to particular companies that have gone through the economic crisis.
Dušan Sedláček specialises primarily in restructuring and insolvency, dispute resolution and arbitration, and the law of obligations. Dušan has extensive experience with insolvency proceedings, both representing creditors (including major bank institutions) in asserting their rights, and also advising Czech and foreign clients on restructuring and other methods of dealing with insolvency. Dušan has represented specialised state institutions in the sale of non-performing loan portfolios to financial investors, and has also been involved in numerous corporate divestitures for local and foreign investors. He publishes and gives lectures on insolvency law and on other areas of his specialisation both in the Czech Republic and abroad. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the Centre for Restructuring and Insolvency of Harry Pollak IEM at the Faculty of Business Administration of the University of Economics in Prague, and a member of the professional organisation Turnaround Management Association ČR.
The largest Czech and Slovak law firm HAVEL & PARTNERS (Havel, Holásek & Partners until 31 December 2017) recorded further economic growth in 2017. Compared to 2016, its turnover for net legal services increased by 8% to a total of CZK 550.8 million. The most successful offices include Prague and Brno, where the net turnover increased by 12% and 6% respectively. The total net turnover of the HAVEL & PARTNERS Group, including the cooperating cash collection agency Cash Collectors, reached CZK 639 million.
“The results for 2017 confirm our position as the leader and the most stable law firm in the Czech and Slovak legal market. Our firm has been growing continuously since its establishment in 2001. Last year, we also managed to put our Bratislava office back in the black. After some stagnation in 2016, the office was restructured, strengthened with new additions to the team and moved to prestigious premises in the new business centre located in the attractive quarter of Zuckermandel below Bratislava Castle. The overall economic growth has been positively affected mainly by the provision of legal services to Czech and Slovak businesses, particularly in respect of real estate projects, mergers and acquisitions, legal and tax structuring of personal property, and commercial disputes. In addition, the criminal law practice has developed very successfully, in the form of close collaboration with SEIFERT A PARTNEŘI”, says Jaroslav Havel, managing partner.
For 2018, the management is planning to further extend the firm’s services and strengthen relationships with key clients. The existing four offices of HAVEL & PARTNERS in Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Bratislava will be joined by a new branch in Olomouc in spring. This office will offer clients mainly the management of retail claims of financial institutions, i.e. namely first-instance trials, insolvency and probate proceedings.
“We trust that in working closely with the newly established branch office of Cash Collectors in Olomouc, we will succeed in building up a prosperous and fully-fledged part of the HAVEL & PARTNERS group that will contribute to its further economic development in the next period”, adds Jaroslav Havel.
*24. 12. 1975 – †23. 3. 2013
It has been five years since we tragically lost our colleague, the firm’s partner, Ondřej Petr. His death has left us devastated. We have not only lost an excellent and professional lawyer, but also a personal and irreplaceable friend. Ondřej Petr had worked with the firm since its founding in 2001. From
2006 to 2009, he was a senior advisor at the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) in London specialising in advice to international investment banks. He also focused on banking and finance at HHP, leading the Banking, Finance and Capital Market team.
Authors: Dušan Sedláček, Petr Sprinz, René Cienciala
Yesterday, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) ruled that investor-state arbitration clauses in bilateral investment treaties concluded between EU Member States (“intra-EU BITs”) are incompatible with EU law.
Background of the case
In a much-anticipated judgment in the case of Achmea v Slovakia (C‑284/16), the CJEU’s Grand Chamber addressed a request for a preliminary ruling lodged by the German Supreme Court in May 2016. The latter court is hearing Slovakia’s challenge to an arbitral award issued in 2012 in favour of the company Achmea in the investor-state investment arbitration.
The dispute goes back to 2004 when Slovakia opened its healthcare insurance market to private investors. Achmea, a Dutch insurer, then set up a subsidiary in Slovakia through which it offered its insurance services on the local market. However, in 2006, Slovakia adopted measures reversing the said liberalisation of the market and, in particular, preventing the distribution of profits generated by healthcare insurance activities.
Accordingly, in 2008, Achmea initiated investment arbitration against Slovakia under the applicable Netherlands-Czechoslovakia agreement on the encouragement and protection of investments of 1991 (“BIT”).
Achmea succeeded with its claim for damages and obtained a €22.1 million arbitral award. But Slovakia subsequently challenged this in the competent German courts given that Frankfurt am Main was chosen as the place (seat) of arbitration. The German courts then referred the case to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling.
CJEU’s judgment and its reasoning
The BIT provides that disputes between one Contracting State and an investor from the other Contracting State shall be finally settled before an arbitral tribunal pursuant to the arbitration rules of the UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law).
The CJEU upheld Slovakia’s position that the BIT established a mechanism for settling investor-state disputes “which could prevent those disputes from being resolved in a manner that ensures the full effectiveness of EU law, even though they might concern the interpretation or application of [EU] law.”
The CJEU based its decision on the fact that the arbitral tribunal in question may be called on to interpret or apply EU law, in particular, the provisions concerning freedom of establishment and free movement of capital. Such tribunal, however, has no power to ask the CJEU for a preliminary ruling on the points of EU law.
In light of the foregoing, the CJEU concluded that the BIT’s arbitration clause has an adverse effect on the autonomy of EU law and, hence, shall be deemed as precluded by Articles 267 and 344 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU . In other words, the arbitration clauses in the intra-EU bilateral investment treaties are incompatible with EU law.
It shall be stressed that the CJEU distinguished between commercial and investment arbitration to circumvent application of its previous case-law on a possible though limited judicial review of arbitral awards within annulment or recognition and enforcement proceedings, including the EU legal issues at stake (see the judgments in cases Eco Swiss, C-126/97, and Mostaza Claro, C-168/05).
Implications of the judgment
The European Commission and the governments of several EU Member States (including Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania) all supported Slovakia’s position. By contrast, the Advocate General, German Supreme Court, and the governments of some other EU Member States (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland) contended that the BIT provision in question is valid as well as similar clauses in other intra-EU BITs.
The judgment will inevitably affect nearly 200 intra-EU BITs in force. As many investment arbitrations under such treaties are currently pending, the CJEU’s decision is, therefore, likely to have far-reaching consequences. The ruling could also have a bearing on trade deals concluded by the EU. The European Commission has already changed its model for investment protection with the goal to set up “courts” for settling investment disputes, considering the vocal opposition to the existing system.
The official press release is available here and the full judgment is available here.
The largest Czech-Slovak law firm HAVEL & PARTNERS has contributed to the International Comparative Legal Guide to: Mergers & Acquisitions 2018. It covers common issues in M&A laws and regulations, including relevant authorities and legislation, target defences, bidder protection, and mechanics of acquisition – in 53 jurisdictions. Václav Audes and Jan Frey, partners at HAVEL & PARTNERS, wrote the Czech Republic chapter which is available on-line here.
We are pleased to form part of this comprehensive legal analysis and we look forward to further contributions and updates.
Our law firm provided comprehensive legal advisory to Albatros Media a.s., a media company and the largest publishing house in the Czech Republic. Albatros Media acquired a 100% share in Vyšehrad, spol. s r.o., the oldest publisher in the Czech Republic. The new owner will keep Vyšehrad’s portfolio of over 80 titles published every year, which will be published under the same name in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Albatros Media is one of our long-term clients. The take-over of Vyšehrad is the twelfth transaction in which our firm provided M&A legal advisory services and extensive know-how to Albatros Media.
The engagement, also involving due diligence, was headed by Jan Frey, a partner, Tereza Ditrychová, an associate, Ivo Skolil, a junior associate, and our other legal experts.
The largest Czech-Slovak law firm HAVEL & PARTNERS was recognised by the UK’s Acquisition International magazine published by AI Global Media Ltd. According to the review of legal advisory rendered in Central and Eastern Europe (the CEE region), HAVEL & PARTNERS is the best law firm in the real estate and construction industries (Best Real Estate & Construction Law Firm – CEE).
“Acquisition International’s award proves our leading position among providers of legal consultancy aimed at the real estate and construction industries. Thanks to the numerous groups of excellent lawyers equipped with detailed knowledge of the real estate market and the broad range of services offered by our law firm, we are able to assist our clients with the most demanding real estate projects,” Jaroslav Havel, managing partner at HAVEL & PARTNERS, comments on the next award received.
Currently, HAVEL & PARTNERS has one of the largest teams of lawyers focused on real estate and construction law in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The team – consisting of 20 lawyers headed by managing partner Jaroslav Havel and partner Lukáš Syrový and supported by another five partners (Josef Hlavička, Martin Fučík, Marek Lošan, Ludvík Juřička, and František Korbel) and counsel Daniela Kozáková – provides legal services relating to both private and public projects, and to all areas of real estate trading and investment projects in compliance with legal regulations applicable in the Czech Republic, FIDIC’s international standards and the European Investment Bank’s rules.
One of the most significant areas the law firm specialises in is legal services provided to developers and investors covering all facets of real estate projects, namely planning decisions, project design and implementation, legal due diligence, purchase and sale of real estate and project financing.
Other real estate and construction law awards
In the Development and Real Estate Projects category of the official Czech competition Law Firm of the Year, HAVEL & PARTNERS has been repeatedly named a Highly Recommended firm, and in 2012 it won the first place in this category. In the respective competition in Slovakia, the firm has ranked among the best firms in the Development Project category in all the years of the award. In 2016, it also won the Corporate INTL award as the best law firm in Slovakia providing comprehensive legal advisory in the field of real estate.
