Commercial law

• The National Council of the Slovak Republic adopted Act no. 72/2013 Coll. which amends the Act on Administrators (in Slovak zákon o správcoch) and the Act on Administrative Fees (zákon o správnych poplatkoch). The amendment brings along a new way of administrators’ selection. The administrators will be selected from a list of administrators consisting of three sections: list of restructuring administrators, list of bankruptcy administrators and list of bankruptcy administrators for natural persons. The concrete administrator will be selected randomly among the administrators of the relevant section. The law further provides for districts from which the administrator may be selected. In restructuring proceedings, or if the administrators in the bankruptcy proceedings is appointed on the basis of the creditors‘ proposal, the administrator may only be selected from the district of the second instance bankruptcy court, in which the first instance bankruptcy court has its seat. By introducing administrator’s certificates, this Act equally intends to eliminate the problems related to the administrators’ presentation in contact with third parties.

Civil law

• The National Council of the Slovak Republic adopted Act no. 64/2013 Coll. which amends the Civil Procedure Code (CPC; in Slovak Občiansky súdny poriadok) and the Act on Court Fees and Fees for Criminal Record Certificate (zákon o súdnych popoatkoch a poplatku za výpis z registra trestov). This Act intends to promote proper performance of the Prosecution Office’s duties in relation to the protection of rights of natural persons, legal persons and the State, since the courts‘ notifications in respect of the civil procedures commencement under section 35(4) CPC has proven ineffective and requires extension of prosecutors‘ competences. The Act entitles the prosecutor to enter ongoing civil proceedings, consult the court file, and make copies and extracts from the file. The prosecutors will also be entitled to request information from the court registries. The entitlement to enter ongoing civil proceedings only applies to matters listed under section 35(2) CPC, which include proceedings regarding legal capacity, determination of invalidity of a property transfer or property passage, or determination of the property title. The Act further introduces specific provisions on class actions. If an entity submits at least 10 actions to the same court in one day, such actions will be treated as a class action.

Administrative law

The National Council adopted Act no 95/2013 Coll. which amends the Act on Public Procurement (in Slovak zákon o verejnom obstarávaní) and the Act on Trades (živnostenský zákon). The amendment intends to promote higher efficiency of public resources use and the competition principle and ensure higher flexibility and transparency of the public procurement procedures. The changes brought by the amendment mainly concern 9 areas of the public procurement. The amendment extends the notification duties and extends the ban of addenda modifying the contract price; it introduces principle of decreasing contract price in cases of repeated supply contracts; it reinforces the principle of the most economically advantageous offer and it clarifies the concept of abnormally low offer. The amendment also introduces new notions, such as accreditation and certification. Another novelty is the dynamic purchasing system (in Slovak elektronické trhovisko) for below-limit tenders (podprahové zákazky). The dynamic purchasing system is a public IT system which facilitates the purchase of goods, construction works or services, which are commonly purchased in the market. The electronic market will be administered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The amendment further brings new provisions on tenderers‘ registration, on conditions of the dynamic purchasing system operation and the sanctions for breach of the public procurement rules.