Alongside our main practice areas we act in the fields below. For foreign clients these are usually the matters that arrive without warning — a decision from an authority, a letter from the police, or a summons in a language you do not read.
Employment law
- For employees: review of an employment contract before you sign, unlawful dismissal, unpaid salary and overtime, non-competition clauses and what they are worth, discrimination and workplace bullying, accidents at work
- For employers: contracts and the agreements used for work outside an employment relationship, internal regulations, terminations and settlement agreements, remuneration, health and safety, and the employment of foreign nationals
- Working across a border: which country’s employment law applies, and where social security is payable, when the work is done partly abroad or remotely from another state
- Representation in employment disputes and before the labour inspectorate
Administrative law and dealings with authorities
- Representation in administrative proceedings and in appeals, and judicial review of administrative decisions
- Administrative offences, including traffic matters and penalties imposed on companies
- Licences, permits and trade licences, and proceedings to withdraw them
- Claims against the state for damage caused by an unlawful decision or by maladministration, including compensation for excessively long proceedings
Criminal defence, including white-collar matters
- Defence at every stage: police questioning, prosecution, trial, appeal and enforcement
- Economic and tax offences, offences by legal persons, and compliance programmes as a defence
- Representation of the injured party, and criminal complaints where you are the one who has been harmed
- Extradition and European Arrest Warrant matters, and the position of a foreign national in Czech criminal proceedings
If you are contacted by the police, you are entitled to a lawyer and to an interpreter before you answer questions. Both are worth using — a statement made in a language you half understand is very hard to correct later.
Public procurement and competition
- Tender documentation and bid preparation, and objections against the conduct of a procurement
- Proceedings before the Office for the Protection of Competition, and judicial review of its decisions
- Unfair competition and misuse of trade secrets
Intellectual property
- Trade marks and designs, including EU trade marks — our partner is a registered representative before the EUIPO (reg. no. 75461)
- Licensing, copyright in commissioned work, and software and content agreements
- Enforcement against infringement
Frequently asked questions
I received a decision in Czech and the deadline is short. What now?
Send it to us the day you get it. Administrative and appeal deadlines in Czech proceedings are short and generally cannot be extended, and the date that counts is the date of delivery, not the date you understood the document.
Do I have to answer questions from the police?
You are entitled to legal assistance and, if you do not speak Czech, to an interpreter. Talk to a lawyer before you make a statement.
Is a non-competition clause in my Czech contract enforceable?
Sometimes. Czech law sets limits on duration and requires compensation for the period of restraint. A clause that ignores those limits is vulnerable, but that is a question about the specific wording.
My case has been running for years. Is there a remedy?
There can be. Czech law provides for compensation where proceedings have taken an unreasonably long time, and there are procedural steps to press a court to move.
Why bring this to MACH LEGAL
- We work with you in English. You deal with the lawyer handling your file, not with a translator in between. We also work in German, Czech, Hebrew and Portuguese.
- Czech law, explained in the terms you know. Most of our English-speaking clients come from another legal system. We say where Czech law differs from what you would expect, not only what it says.
- Cross-border matters stay in one place. Our partner Dr. Tomas Mach is an attorney-at-law registered with the Czech Bar Association (13282), the Slovak Bar Association (7581) and the Rechtsanwaltskammer Köln (61058), and a court-appointed expert in the law of the Federal Republic of Germany and the law of the Slovak Republic.
- A written scope and a written fee. We agree what we will do and on what basis we charge before we start. See Legal services and fees.
How we work
- First contact. Send us the documents and a short description of the situation. We tell you whether the matter needs a lawyer at all.
- Assessment. You get our reading of the position, the options and the likely cost of each.
- Instruction. A power of attorney and a written scope of work.
- The work itself. Drafting, negotiating or representing you, with a report at each step that needs your decision.
Contact: Contact page · praha@machlegal.eu · +420 245 008 552