Return of the employee after quarantine or temporarly incapacity for work

Every employer will experience employee’s temporary incapacitation for work. But not every employer knows what happens after the first 14 days of an employee’s temporary inability to work for which period it is the employer who pays the employee a wage compensation. On the fifteenth day, the so-called support period begins when this obligation passes to the state.

In the eyes of many employers the support period and the duration of employees inability to work often coincide in one period. While the support period actually depends on the duration of the incapacity for work, the opposite is not the case. The end of the support period therefore does not necessarily mean the employee's obligation to return to work. This occurs only at the end of the duration of inability to work itself.

The employer's administrative and other obligations in relation to the employee's returning following to temporary inability to work may vary, for example, depending on the reasons for which the employee has been declared unable to work or the duration of the incapacitation. In the event that an employee has been declared unable to work due to an accident at work, he or she should as soon as possible undergo a special medical examination by a physician who will assess whether the employee is fit to continue to perform the previous work. The same applies in some cases if the employee's inability to work lasts longer than 8 weeks, and always if it lasts longer than 6 months. Depending on the results of this assessment, the employer may even be obliged to transfer the employee to another job that will correspond to his health condition.

Oftentimes the employer will employ someone else instead of the employee who is unable to work. But what are his options after the original employee has to return to work following to the end of work inability? Except for the above case, such an employee cannot be automatically transferred to another position, and if the employer no longer has a job for him, he will most likely have no choice but to terminate the employment with this employee. The conditions for employment termination will again differ depending on the circumstances in which the employee's incapacity for work was determined and what his condition is after its termination.

As can be seen, the issue of incapacitation for work is a relatively complicated matter and each case must be assessed separately taking into account its specific circumstances. Should you need help in this area, we are ready to help.

 

News about register of beneficial owners

In December last year, we informed about the draft law governing the register of beneficial owners, and we outlined some of the changes that are associated with it, especially the issue of new sanctions for the failure to make a proper registration of beneficial owner.

The above law has since undergone an approval process both in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate and was published in the Collection of Laws under No. 37/2021 Coll., On the registration of beneficial owners. Most of the provisions of the Act on the Registration of Beneficial Owners will enter into force on 1 June 2021. It is therefore high time to review the registration in register of beneficial owners and to update the registration to meet current requirements, if necessary.

The range of data on registered beneficial owners is expanding with the new regulation. Both the current and the new regulation require the indication of the address of the place of residence of the beneficial owner. Under the current regulation it was possible to provide only partial information regarding the address so that it could not be traced with certainty. That should no longer be possible. Companies will thus have to provide more detailed information about their real owners. It will also be necessary to state the status of the real owner, the date from which the person became the real owner, or the date when this status expired.

If you need to evaluate whether your registration of the real owner is in accordance with the new regulation or update the registration, do not hesitate to contact us.

 

A work produced by an employee

The Czech copyright law gives employers a broad range of rights to copyrighted works created by their employees. Based on them the employer exercises property rights to employee works in his own name and on his own account and, with the employee's consent, also concludes related license agreements. Unless agreed otherwise, it is presumed that an employer may publish, modify, process, or translate, its employee works, combine them into collective works, complete unfinished works, and publish them under his own name. According to the applicable laws in the Czech Republic, in some aspects, this authorization is even perceived as broader than what can be obtained with respect to the work made to order. Termination of employment does not affect the duration of these rights.

A fundamental limitation is that such a work must be created by the employee in the course of his work for the employer, during working hours, and using the employer's resources. Therefore, if an employee creates a copyright work outside his job, in his free time, or outside the scope of work specified in the employment contract, it will not be an employee work and the employer would have to obtain a contractual license to be able to use it. This will be the case even if the work relates to the employer's activity.

Another topic worth paying attention to is reward. Unless otherwise agreed, the employee is entitled to a reasonable additional remuneration from the employer if his salary becomes manifestly disproportionate to the employer’s profit from the use of the rights to the employee's work and the importance of such work for achieving such a profit. This is not the only issue for which the law lays down rules, with the proviso that conditions can be negotiated differently.

With regard to the above, we can recommend that employers with employees of creative potential laid down internal regulations (and possibly also specific agreements in employment contracts) related to the possibility of creating employee copyright works and procedures for reporting, submission, and remuneration of employee works. In this way, it is then possible, for example, to secure a pre-emptive right to obtain licenses for works that would for any reason fall out of the  employee work scope.