Criminal defence of entrepreneurs

The complexity of today’s business relationships, business structures and the legal environment places much higher demands on legal prudence in business than before. All the more so as business interests also have an impact on public interests, especially the interest of the state to collect taxes from entrepreneurs.

Any simplification of the tax and accounting system in the Czech Republic is not in sight, and even tax advisers have a problem navigating through all the regulations, not to mention entrepreneurs alone. This, of course, adds to the possibility of a conflict between the interests of entrepreneurs who try to optimise the tax burden, and the interest of the state which tries to collect taxes.

Recently, the decision-making of the courts have become stricter when assessing criminal liability of bodies of legal entities, executives, members of the Board of Directors, or even supervisory boards.  The courts now transfer more and more responsibility over to the statutory bodies which are responsible for all events occurring in companies, as well as for the actions of internal experts including the responsibility (co-responsibility) of suppliers - which we consider wrong.

Since 2012, a legal entity may also be prosecuted, and it may even end up in liquidation of the company - in extreme cases. A legal person or entity may be acquitted if it proves that it has exercised every effort that could reasonably be expected from that entity to prevent the illegal activities from happening. Therefore, effective preventive tools / internal regulations should be implemented across the company to prevent such punishments.