On Thursday, 6 June 2024, the annual conference of the Czech Compliance Association was held at the Louvre Gallery in Prague 1, entitled Compliance Odyssey. Law firm Taylor Wessing Czech Republic was main partner of the successful event. It was yet another reminder that running an organisation by the rules is a long and winding road, but gets one ever closer to that goal.
"This conference has made it clear that compliance, and the exchange of experience in setting up compliance systems and implementing related processes are very important for people working in the compliance field. Most importantly, however, the open atmosphere and active participation of attendees confirmed that people in the field of Compliance take their mission seriously, not as a necessary fulfillment of some formal requirements. And this is what we on the CCA Executive Board are most happy about," reflected Radim Bureš, PhD, member of the CCA Executive Board.
The day-long conference, which drew 142 participants, included panel discussions, workshops and, last but not least, networking opportunities. Markéta Deimelová from Taylor Wessing Czech Republic led a workshop on Compliance in Competition. She gave a clear, step-by-step presentation of competition rules, the powers of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection in local investigations and the methodology of the Office's compliance programmes, recent decisions of the European Commission on prohibited agreements and bid rigging as well as sanctions and fines. Her presentation included an analysis of specific examples in which local investigations were obstructed.
“Conference participants created a very friendly atmosphere and I was to delighted to receive a number of very positive responses after the presentation," said Markéta Deimelová, Partner at Taylor Wessing Czech Republic and head of the Competition, EU, and International Law and Compliance team.
The morning programme also included the International Sanctions and Risks of Circumvention panel. In light of the ongoing war in Ukraine, this panel dealt with a very important current issue, and a complex one due to the danger of supplying sanctioned goods to Russia via third countries. Since the sanctions have been imposed, exports to Central Asian countries, for example, have increased very sharply. Participants also talked about the danger of Russian citizens' ownership of sanctioned companies getting hidden in opaque ownership structures. Another equally interesting panel was Whistleblowing One Year Later. It will soon be one year since the adoption of the Whistleblower Protection Act No. 171/2003, which imposes a number of obligations on companies and authorities, in particular the setting up of an internal whistleblowing channel to report possible violations. The panel brought together representatives of the Ministry of Justice together with representatives of selected law firms. The sensitive issue of transferring information obtained from a whistleblower abroad was also discussed.
