At one of my Geneva seminars this week, a participant told me that Czech law says you have to include certain information in the introductory clause. At my request, she followed up with a colleague, who told her the following:
This is stipulated under Sec. 435 of the Czech Civil Code(act no. 89/2012 Coll.). Please see below:
(1) Every entrepreneur must specify his name and registered office on business instruments and as part of the information made available to the public via remote access. An entrepreneur registered in the commercial register shall also specify information about this registration, including the section and inset on the business instrument; an entrepreneur registered in another public register shall provide information of his registration in the register; an entrepreneur not registered in a public register shall provide the information of his registration in another register. If an entrepreneur has been assigned an identifier, he shall specify it as well.
So a Czech registered company should include the following information in contracts governed by Czech law: company name, registered office, company ID number, and registration in the Commercial Register (section, insert).
It’s not specified that that information has to be included in the introductory clause, but I agree with the seminar participant that it makes sense to put it in the introductory clause. After all, the function of party-specific information in the introductory clause is to allow you to distinguish that party from any other entity with the same name. You might be able to accomplish that with less information than is required by Czech law, but it would seem contrary to insist on putting any of that information somewhere else.
According to others at the seminar, other countries in Eastern Europe have the same sort of requirement.
Why am I telling you this? Just to remind you that sometimes, the law tells you what you have to put in your contracts.