Introduction

1. In the Czech legal system, public offering of securities, public security markets and acceptance of securities to these markets are subject to Act No. 256/2004 Coll., the Capital Market Trading Act (hereinafter the ‘CMTA’). The CMTA was adopted in 2004 and took effect upon the Czech Republic's accession to the European Union (1 May 2004). Prior to the adoption of the CMTA, capital market and securities trading issues were subject to Act No. 591/1992 Coll., the Securities Act. In addition to primarily public-law regulation of the capital market, the Securities Act contained general private-law provisions applicable to securities and certain contractual types relating to securities. However, the CMTA was drafted mainly as a public-law regulation replacing the provisions of the Securities Act applicable to these issues up to that time. The only provisions of the Securities Act remaining valid were the ones of a private-law character while the CMTA became the regulation aspiring to take the position of a codex regulating the capital market.

The CMTA has a position of special professional law in the Czech legal system. Any general issues not regulated by the CMTA are, depending on the nature thereof, subject to general private law (in particular the Commercial Code and the Civil Code) or general public law (in particular the Code of Administrative Procedure).