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Disclosure of Open Data wins the Act of the Year 2016 title, Electronic Sales Records rank second

The winner of the Act of the Year 2016 survey is the Wealth of Open Data. This decision was made by more than a quarter (26.4%) of entrepreneurs, companies and the expert public as part of the survey. The phenomenon of the need to work with data therefore overtook the controversial Act on Electronic Sales Records (20.3%), the new Act on Public Procurement ranked third (16.4 %). The survey, organised by Ambruz & Dark Deloitte Legal in cooperation with partners, assesses the best legislative act of the last year affecting Czech business. 

This year’s survey was already the eighth. It aims to contribute to the debate between Czech businesses, politicians and the expert public about the quality of legal regulations. Last year’s winner was the Register of Contracts.

“The results show that the purging of the legislation of old regulations, their unification and better organisation and general avoidance of overload of new regulations are important for businesses – together these topics under two separate nominations would received the most votes, but they are not the current priority for businesses. What they see as the least urgent is the need to protect business know-how in the EU. This last point should be analysed further with the business public – whether it is because they do not perceive the need to unify the protection within the EU, or to improve protection as such,” comments Tomáš Babáček, Chairman of the Nomination Committee of the Act of the Year survey and an attorney at Ambruz & Dark Deloitte Legal.

“It was very difficult to choose a legal regulation that has a significant positive impact on the business environment. I am glad that the act that was selected is one that can influence the business public in this way and improve its awareness. I was also very pleased with the high ranking of the Act on Electronic Sales Records, which was perceived as controversial by a part of the business public,” comments Marta Nováková, President of the Confederation of Commerce and Tourism and Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce of the Czech Republic.

Technology attracts attention

The distribution of votes indicates that in 2016, legislators and policy makers did not provide the Czech business environment with any essential legal regulation that would significantly prevail over the others.

The business environment is traditionally affected by public procurement and tax legislation. “However, the regulation of technologies is gradually moving to the forefront of interest. It seems that entrepreneurs are becoming aware of the possible positive effect of the regulation of business – building an infrastructure and standards that create new markets and a level playing field and its rules. The results indicate that Czech entrepreneurs will know how to use their innovativeness to make the online access to public registers in a machine readable format into something new and beneficial,” adds Babáček.

Robert Němec, attorney and the Vice-Chairman of the Czech Bar Association, added: “On behalf of the Czech Bar Association, which has assumed patronage of the Act of the Year survey, I would like to thank the organisers of the competition for their efforts to cultivate the legislative environment in the Czech Republic through this survey. The results of the survey show that the expert and business public appreciate and welcome legislative changes that lead to the cultivation and smoothing of the business environment and transparency of the public sphere while at the same time respecting the requirements for minimising unnecessary bureaucracy.”

Law for Business

The survey is part of a larger project that regularly brings opinions on the legislative business framework in the Czech Republic. This year’s survey, subtitled Law for Business, had 360 respondents from the business environment participating via an online questionnaire and physical ballot papers.

The Act of the Year is a joint project of companies, associations, non-profit organisations and other entities engaged in the quality of business regulation in the Czech Republic. This year’s edition has newly seen the participation of the Confederation of Industry, Confederation of Commerce and Tourism and the Chamber of Commerce. Partnership and patronage of the project has been assumed by the Czech Bar Association. The project aspires to be a highly visible content initiative uniting the views of distinguished experts on the Czech market.