A recent amendment to Act No. 62/2020 Coll. (the act on certain emergency measures in connection with the spread of the dangerous contagious human disease COVID-19, and in the judiciary, as amended), effective from January 19, 2021, amends the running of periods of limitation and periods of prescription, as well as certain procedural time limits in court proceedings, and introduces also other important measures.

Under the amendment, the time limits to exercise or defend rights in court, stipulated by legal regulations governing private law relationships, after the expiry of which the right would lapse or expire,

(a) do not run from January 19, 2021 to February 28, 2021; the same also applies to statutory time limits or time limits determined by a court to perform a procedural act in a court proceeding by the parties to the proceeding and other participants in the proceeding;

(b) and which expired after December 31, 2020 up to January 19, 2021, shall not end earlier than February 18, 2021.

The amendment also stipulates that, in times of emergency, collective bodies of legal entities may use voting by correspondence or allow their members to participate in a meeting of such a body by electronic means, even if it does not follow from their internal regulations or articles of association.

However, if the conditions for decision-making outside a meeting are not stipulated by law, internal regulations or the articles of association, they shall be determined, in the case of the highest body of a legal entity, by the statutory body, acting with due diligence, and in the case of another body they shall be determined by this other body. These conditions must be notified to the members of the body well in advance of decision-making.