Act on Registration of Contracts

The parliament is currently deliberating on a government legislation draft of the Act on Registration of Contracts. This legislation should (similarly as in Slovak republic) introduce a mandatory publishing of contracts concluded by public authorities in the register of contracts which shall be a part of Public Administration Portal. The act should govern all contracts based on which any public funds are being disposed of, regardless of the subject-matter of the contract – the important factor shall be whether a party to such contract is the State in a broad sense (municipalities, corporations controlled by state etc). In case a contract is not published it shall be deemed ineffective and after 3 months since its execution it shall be deemed null and void.

The law was submitted to the Parliament in somewhat atypical alternative wording. Under the first alternative only contracts themselves should be published, under the second alternative both contracts as well as orders and invoices should be published. So far it is not clear which alternative shall prevail with the members of Parliament. As opposed to the Slovak version, under the Czech draft only the wording of the contracts (allowing for search through the text) shall be published, not the whole electronic version (scan) of the signed document. Parts of contracts containing personal data, confidential data or trade secret shall not be published. However if a contract disposed of any public assets, the information on the extent and the receiver of the public funds is not protected by a trade secret.