Kocián Solc Balastík

Firm overview: For more than three decades, KŠB, a four-time recipient of the prestigious Chambers Europe Award for Excellence, has been an acclaimed market leader, creating innovative and groundbreaking legal solutions for its clients involving new legislation and legal and business concepts. A proudly independent Czech law firm, KŠB is globally interconnected through long-term relationships with other leading independent law firms, with whom it frequently works on cross-border transactions. Its mission is to strategically guide its global and domestic clients in attaining and exceeding their business objectives in the Czech Republic. Delivering commercially driven and sector specific advice, the firm is not just ready for the future, but actively facilitating it in the evolving 21st century business world for the benefit of its clients, whose success is the firm’s greatest satisfaction.

Main areas of practice

M&A:

The M&A transactional work of our lawyers has been widely acclaimed for many years, also at an international level. Our firm and its individual lawyers are regularly included by prestigious international rating agencies amongst the leading law firms of the Czech Republic in this area, as well as amongst the leading Czech transactional lawyers. We are a recognized pioneer in the use of new legal concepts and transaction structures. Our transactional advisory services include legal services in all areas typically involved in transactions, i.e. not only drafting and negotiating standard transaction documents, but also advising on competition aspects, corporate changes, etc.

Corporate:

Our firm is a recognized pioneer in using new legal concepts and transaction structures, often creating legal solutions which can be described as ground-breaking or innovative.

We understand the mindset and needs of a diverse range of clients in their corporate law requirement, from public companies to family and privately owned businesses, from start-ups to multinationals, from financial institutions to investors. We have the skill and experience to advise on all aspects of corporate law. We are involved in all aspects of corporate governance, including director and officer liability. We are very familiar with structuring and drafting documentation for joint venture arrangements that specifically recognize and protect the needs of foreign investors in the Czech environment.

Banking and finance:

Our team has many years of experience in providing advice to leading financial institutions operating in the Czech Republic and abroad. We provide our services across the entire spectrum of the financial market, incl. in the area of regulation of financial market services, from day-to-day regulatory work to representing clients in administrative proceedings before the Czech National Bank (local Czech regulator). Our firm provides long-term comprehensive legal support in the field of commercial contracts, where we help to tailor-make the contracts according to the individual needs of our clients. In addition to the transactional and regulatory area, we handle financial litigation, representing financial institutions in court proceedings, arbitration proceedings and proceedings before the Czech Financial Arbiter. We provide advice to a number of financial institutions on AML issues and legal support for projects in the field of personal data protection.

Securities and capital markets:

We are preeminent amongst Czech law firms with respect to our capital markets practice. We advises issuers, shareholders and leading domestic as well as foreign investment banks in the whole spectrum of securities and capital market work, including advice on share buyback programmes, high yield bond issues, IPOs, public and private issues of various debt instruments, issuing of hybrid investment instruments, public offering of securities (dual listings, cross-border offerings), take-over bids, or employee stock option plans. We also have long-term and considerable experience in providing our services to distributors of financial products and providers of investment advisory services. Our capital markets team has extensive regulatory experience  and advises clients on the provision or intermediation of investment services, compliance in public offerings of securities, SICAV and alternative investment funds (AIF) issues.

We regularly represent issuers in proceedings before the Czech National Bank (central bank of the Czech Republic and supervisor/regulator of capital markets) regarding approval of prospectuses of securities and licensing issues. Our litigation team supported by our capital market experts has wide ranging experience with the resolution of disputes arising from security instruments and in connection with providing investment services. Our experts were engaged in the implementation of many EU regulations affecting capital markets, including implementation of prospectus regulation, transparency directive, directive on undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) and the directive on alternative investment funds managers (AIFM), and MIFID2/MIFIR regulatory instruments.

Competition: 

Our competition law practice has been ranked consistently as one of the most prominent on the Czech market. We have helped our clients achieve many major arbitration victories, with the most high-profile case being a win for Czech bakery group Delta Pekárny at the European Court of Human Rights which was awarded European Competition Case of the Year award in The Lawyer European Awards 2015. We provide comprehensive advice on competition law for competitors and other market participants, in particular to clients with a significant market share, during large transactions, including representation of clients during negotiations and administrative proceedings before the Czech Competiton Authority. We assist our clients with matters relating to mergers, dominant positions and agreements with potential to distort economic competition. Furthermore, we provide comprehensive advice on unfair competition, such as permitted and prohibited conduct in economic competition, in particular comparative and misleading advertisements, domain names, use of corporate names, protection of trade secrets, and parasitic competition.

Litigation and arbitration:

We have achieved a number of significant successes in complex and high-stakes disputes over the years. We represent clients in disputes arising from commercial obligations, disputes for damages, corporate litigation, including invalidation of corporate acts, labour law disputes, competition law cases and also intellectual property law litigation, including trademarks disputes. We also handle financial litigation, arbitration and administrative proceedings, including proceedings before the Czech Financial Arbiter.

We represent our clients:

(i) before Czech courts, including the Constitution Court of the Czech Republic, the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic and the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic;

(ii) before international courts and institutions, including the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Tribunal of the European Union; and

(iii) in arbitration procedures governed by the Rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules and the Rules of the Arbitration Court attached to the Economic Chamber of the Czech Republic and Agricultural Chamber of the Czech Republic.

Energy (including mining):

Our Projects & Energy practice is best known for its history of success in the planning, development, implementation and operation of large-scale power and heat generation instalments. This includes all legal advice relating to the development and construction of power facilities, renewable energy sources, energy project financing, public law market regulation, disputes, M&A, public contracts, compliance and others. We assist clients active in the energy business engaged in industry sectors such as generation and distribution of electricity and heat and distribution of gas transmission of electricity trading with electricity and gas, renewable energy, and mining and natural resource processing. Based on extensive experience advising international investors in connection with asset restructuring and acquisitions in the energy sector, KSB can fully satisfy all transactional needs of its energy clients, including project financing, assessing environmental issues that are especially sensitive in the energy sector and international dispute resolution. Our team provides high-level advisory services to domestic and international energy investors that depict the ongoing liberalization of the Czech energy market energy sectors. We closely monitor the legal implications of emerging technology and strategic issues in the energy sector, such as CO2 emission allowances trading, renewables such as biomass, solar and wind etc.

Real estate:

Our practice has  since 1990 has grown to become a market leading firm in Czech real estate. Our track record includes advising on the D47 motorway construction (a pioneering PPP project), the sale of a 40,000 apartment portfolio, and the sale of an EUR 80 million warehouse portfolio. We have also been successful in many real estate related disputes and administrative proceedings. Our clients can be found across the entire industry, and include real estate investors, banks, logistics developers, office and retail developers, and residential developers. We provide our clients with the advantage of fully integrated legal and tax services for their real estate investments, so that they can make the right decision regarding the purchase or sale projects to maximize their returns. Within each transaction, we help to set up the financing and security aspects correctly. Equally important is follow-up consultancy regarding the management and operation of real estate, which is gaining in importance especially for more complex development, hotel and industrial projects. Strong regulatory background and insight helps in the due diligence process.

Aviation:

KSB is prized for its unique expertise in aviation, including aircraft financing, regulatory issues and claims handling. Its clients include ABS Jets, BBAM Aircraft Leasing, Cirrus Aircraft, easyJet, Macquarie Aviation, Prague Airport, and XL Insurance. KSB also advises the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) on issues linked with the deployment of the EGNOS, which provides augmentation to the standard GPS and Galileo signal.

TMT/IP/IT:

KSB has a comprehensive intellectual property practice. We advise on all areas of intellectual property and related matters, particularly contracts, litigation, copyright, advertising and unfair competition, trade secrets, software and e-commerce, including artificial intelligence. We advise clients in a range of IP and IT sectors, including architecture, construction, retail, media and education. Our intellectual property services include, among others, representation in proceedings related to registration and monitoring of registrations, protection of intellectual property on online platforms, including online content, drafting and negotiating contractual documentation regarding the development, licensing and distribution of software solutions, advising on copyright, including representation in disputes regarding the protection of know-how. In the IT field, we advise on software (development, licensing and merchandising), on the creation and operation of e-commerce, on IT outsourcing and IT systems delivery/implementation, and on data protection and cybersecurity of IT systems. We also represent clients in administrative and court proceedings concerning, for example, electronic spam, liability of website operators and service providers or compliance with rights under the Data Protection Act.

Employment:

In the field of employment law we advise a wide range of high profile domestic and international clients on the full spectrum of employment law, both transactional and advisory, in the Czech Republic. We are the exclusive Czech member of the Employment Law Alliance (ELA), an international network of law firms providing specialist employment, business immigration and labour expertise in more than 135 countries around the world and in all 50 U.S. states. Our international activities and a worldwide network of professional contacts are a source of up-to-date information in the legal and tax fields, valuable work experience and, above all, enable us to solve demanding client projects beyond the Czech Republic.

Tax:

The practice has been well established for 28 years and is highly acknowledged amongst clients, competitors and tax administrators for its professional expertise, skills, creative approach and understanding of clients’ business needs. Our tax practice and the individual advisors have been repeatedly recognized by  Legal 500. Our tax team offer thorough and professional advice and assistance with proceedings in connection with all types of direct and indirect taxes in the Czech Republic in relation to business companies, non-profit organizations and individuals. Our clients benefit from services based on the close co-operation of tax advisers and our lawyers in dealing with new tax issues, innovative application of tax law and transactions structured in a tax efficient manner. Additionaly, our tax practice holds a very good tax litigation track record. Our tax team has also enhanced its reputation in specific areas, in particular, taxation of Czech trust-like structures and VAT claims in connection with TV and radio fees (the ECJ issued a decision in favour of a claim made by KŠB on behalf of Czech Radio).