Renewable energy sources are promoted across Europe. Their importance within the energy sector has grown significantly. After the Czech Republic surprisingly put in place the withholding tax on solar energy revenues effective from 1 January 2011, the solar market saw significant changes. Numerous investors feel uncertain and concerned about the profitability of their investments, as they were promised at least five-year tax holidays in the past.
For us, this means that we are preparing for damage compensation disputes or arbitration proceedings where we are going to defend the interests of our clients. We offer an in-depth analysis of the situation of each investor, and have found that there are plenty of cases which require a dedicated legal solution, due also to the fact that investment protection agreements the Czech Republic has entered into with other countries vary greatly and lead to different outcomes as to the claims to damages.
Our law firm has diverse experience in litigations and in representing clients before national and international courts of arbitration, with such experience being very useful in situations like this. The fact that some of our lawyers serve as arbitrators at national and international levels is also quite relevant.
In the medium-term and even long-term outlooks, we consider the renewable energy sector to be a growing and attractive market in the Czech Republic.
As concerns the renewable energy sector, we are a ‘full-service’ law firm. We primarily offer the following services to our clients:
Responsible lawyers: Lars Klett, Mgr. Štěpán Patočka, JUDr. Petr Jakubec
Lars Klett is a German lawyer and a foreign lawyer established in the Czech Republic. Since 2010, he has been partner of Ueltzhöffer Balada. Before joining our firm in October 2009, he had, since 2000, worked in Prague as a lawyer with CMS Cameron McKenna, e|n|w|c and others. His core activities include wide-ranging consultancy for international groups and medium-sized enterprises in their business in the territory of the Czech Republic. In addition to consultancy for trade and production companies, his portfolio also includes the funding of enterprises and providing consultancy in respect of renewable energy resources. He speaks German, Czech, Slovak, English, French and Dutch.
Mgr. Štěpán Patočka joined our team in 2007 after his four-year experience as business lawyer. As early as during his studies at the Faculty of Law of the Charles University, he served as a lawyer with one of the largest developers in the Czech Republic. Štěpán provided his clients with comprehensive legal consultancy in residential project implementations, thus gaining extensive experience in cadastral law, as well as in construction law, commercial law and real estate law. In our law firm, he newly specialises in the legislative consultancy regarding the promotion of energy from renewable sources. He speaks Czech and English.
Petr Jakubec is a Czech lawyer and partner of Ueltzhöffer Balada, who gained his first experience, during his studies, at Linklaters, v.o.s., one of the leading international law firms in Prague, where he worked from August 2001 on various real estate transactions and privatization projects. In January 2003, he started as a trainee lawyer with the Prague team of Seddons, a London-based law firm focused mainly on real estate acquisitions and corporate law. Over this period, he gained experience in greenfield and brownfield projects. In June 2006, Petr qualified as a lawyer and, in November 2007, he joined our team. Petr is experienced in a variety of real estate projects, particularly the individual sales of private dwellings, the purchases and acquisitions of residential and commercial buildings, and major brownfield projects funded by private equity.