According to the latest amendments of the Companies’ Act referring to the structure of a share holding company, besides the dualistic structure (management, supervisory board and the general assembly) there is a possibility to organize the organs in a monistic system, in which besides the general assembly there is just one organ – the management board. The Companies’ Act provides precise regulations on authorities of the management board, which means that the management board runs the company’s business operations, defines the bases for realization of business operations, appoints executive directors, absolves of them. The activities of the management board are thus determined through its main functions, stated above.
The legal position of the religious communities is rather complex and requires and effort to master such complicated issues. The law and the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia guarantee the equality of all religious communities. Due to the fact that the majority of the inhabitants of the Republic of Croatia belong to the Roman Catholic Church this article particularly deals with the relationship between the Republic of Croatia and the Holy Chair, which is mostly regulated with the four international agreements from 1997 and 1998: the Agreement on Co-operation in the Field of Education and Culture, the Agreement on Spiritual Counselling of Catholic Catechism, Members of the Army and Police of the Republic of Croatia, the Agreement on Legal Issues, and the Agreement on Economic Issues.
The elections for the members of representative bodies in the units of local and regional government and the elections for municipality heads, mayors, county heads and the mayor of the City of Zagreb as executive authorities are shortly called local elections. Besides the executive authorities these elections include the members of the municipality councils, city councils, county assemblies and the Assembly of the City of Zagreb. They are elected at direct elections by secret voting. For the fi rst time this year (2009) municipality heads, mayors, county heads and the Mayor of the City of Zagreb and their deputies were directly elected.
The article gives a comment on the Decision of the Constitutional Court no. U-III-1297/2009 made on 5 March 2009. This Decision is of a great importance for the complete relationship between the creditor and the debtor, because it favours the debtor, not only in concreto but it has an effect on all other similar relationships. In the author’s opinion such decisions should be made public on web sites and in offi cial gazettes, as it is the case in the western countries, as well as through reports in daily or other press and alike. This text represents an attempt to compensate the above stated issue.
The termination of the contract on employment is one of the ways of cancellation of the contract on employment, which according to the Labour Act has to be in a written form. However, a decision made by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia is rather confusing, because the above stated court accepted the termination of contract on employment in person providing the explanation that the termination of the contract on employment in person represents a decision against which court protection is allowed under the conditions and terms stated in the Labour Act, whereby the cancellation given by the employer does not differ from the cancellation given by the employee. Accordingly, the above stated Court decision provides to the employee the right to protection in case of the classical written cancellation of the contract on employment.
The article deals with the persons who in good faith report the corruption (the so-called whistleblowers) and their legal protection according to the effective legal regulations of the Republic of Croatia. The author stresses the fact that the corruption endangers the economy and the basic values of a civil community. Principally, the persons who fi rst discover the case of corruption are the employees in state bodies and companies, where such information are available. However, in most cases these persons do not report the case of corruption due to a number of reasons. Accordingly, the corruption is diffi cult to reveal. Therefore, the legal protection of the persons who in good faith report the cases of corruption represents an important act in the struggle against corruption. The Republic of Croatia implemented the provisions referring to the protection of whistleblowers in a number of its acts, which also include calling to account, retention of legal rights and all forms of abuse.
At the beginning of this year the Act on Architectural and Engineering Work and Activities in Urban Planning and Construction came into effect. The reform referring to the urban planning and construction of the administrative areas was thus completed, fi rstly through the Act on Urban Planning and Construction and then through the Act on Construction Products.
The article analyzes the level of prejudicial impact of the criminal court decision on the legal proceeding. In civil lawsuits the judge is authorized to make declaratory decisions on existence or non-existence of legal relations or rights, no matter who is authorized for the solution of the particular case, if this case has not already been solved through the valid decision of the authorized body or the solving of the case at the civil court has not been prohibited according to some specific legal provision. The litigation court depends on the valid decision of the criminal court only in view of the existence of the criminal act and criminal responsibility of the committer, according to which the committer is proclaimed guilty. In such a case it is often necessary for the litigation court to stop the proceedings and awaits the valid decision of the criminal court. The judge has then a clear insight into the lawsuit, which makes his/her decision-making easier. The author analyzes the Croatian court practice referring to the above stated issues so far, the structure of the Austrian legal proceedings and the three systems of solving the above stated case.
The article analyzes a concrete court decision on rejection of making an entry into land registers and the issue of the relationship between temporary measures and other relevant decisions made by land register courts and litigation courts. The author stresses the importance of recording the prohibition of misappropriation and lien of the real estate and criticizes the negative examples from the court practice, which should be changed in order to achieve a higher level of legal security and rule of the law.
Fictitious legal business as the principle of taxation in a tax-law relationship has been present in the General Tax Act since it became effective. However, in view of the tax supervision this legal provision is rarely applied. Due to the fact that the Croatian legislation allows tax authorities to prevent fi ctitious legal businesses, it is necessary to direct them properly and to analyze the volume of fi ctitious legal businesses in order to prevent tax evasion. It is important to note that one fi ctitious legal business actually covers another real legal business. In such a way the measures of tax supervision may infl uence the prevention of tax evasion.
Due to the current global recession the situation referring to the investment funds (financial institutions which collect cash funds of the public and invest them into various marketable securities, instruments of cash markets, cash deposits and alike) in the Republic of Croatia has also changed. The crisis in business operations of investment funds was evident in the fall of value of their shares i.e. assets due to the considerable withdrawal of cash assets and slow investments caused by citizens’ loss of trust into the financial market. However, it should be taken into account that investing into investment funds should be observed as long-term investing which will in a few years certainly bring considerable yields.
The article deals with the investment fund prospectus according to the Croatian Law on investment funds comparing the same issue in the German and Austrian law, including the key elementsof the legal arrangement of the prospectus and the statute of investment funds in the European Union law. The matter is processed in accordance with the existing types of investment funds in Croatian law, discussing the Brochure of investment funds with public offering, the open-end investment funds with private offering, and investment funds with risk capital, with reference to the comparative legal solutions and the law in the European Union. The article specifically analyses the issues related to the concept and contents of the prospectus (its complete or abridged version), the principles of truth and completeness of the data published in the Brochure with the consequences of non-assignment of these principles, and also the conditions of approval, publication and changes of the investment fund prospectus.
Autori: Mr. sc. Loris BELANIĆ, dipl. iur. Mr. sc. Gabrijela MIHELČIĆ, dipl. iur.
On 28 January 2009 the European Commission accepted the Proposal on amending Directive 2006/112/ EC on the common system of value added tax as regards the rules on invoicing. The proposal is based on the previous announcement regarding technological development in the fi eld of electronic invoicing. The goal of the increased number of electronical invoicing is to reduce the burden in economy, to help small and middle-sized companies and to support the EU member countries in their struggle against tax frauds. The proposed Directive is expected to simplify and modernize and comply the VAT regulations with invoicing. The Proposal represents the main element of the Commission’s action program to reduce administrative costs in economy, which have to be reduced by 25% until 2012. It also represents the fi rst part of the Commission’s Strategy for more effi cient struggle against VAT frauds.
After a long-year legislation procedure the Directive 2008/48/EC on Consumer Credit Contracts was accepted in April 2008. The provisions of the above stated Directive became effective in June 2008. The EU member countries have to take over these provisions in their national law. The old Directive 87/102/EEC on Consumer Credit became non-effective on the day when the new Directive came into effect. The reasons for the reform of the European law are numerous, but the European Commission stresses the two most important ones. The Directive 87/102/EEC regulated only some issues of the consumer credit and the minimum protection standard outside the border of the member countries. On the other hand, the conditions on the credit market have changed since the date of the acceptance of the Directive 87/102/EEC. These changes include the increased number of different types and forms of credits and the different behaviour of consumers.
