The Labour Act explicitly determines that the employee who thinks that his employer has violated any of his/her rights from the employment relation may within 15 days after the receipt of the decision which has violated his rights, i.e. after the date of his/her realising that the right has been violated, claim from the employer the execution of his rights. If the employer does not fulfil such a claim within 15 days after its receipt, the employee has the right to claim the execution of his/her rights at the appointed court within the period of 15 days. These terms are classified as preclusion terms. The preclusion is namely the loss of the right to litigation. The preclusion, as the consequence of missing of some deadline, is so important that the court officially supervises it. Since the rights from the employment are mostly violated through the notice of termination of employment, the regulations on claims for execution of rights and litigations in such situation are very important in practice.
When a part of some person’s property is in any way transferred to the property of another person, and that transfer has no basis in a legal transaction, in a court decision, or of some other competent authorities’ or the law, the acquirer is obliged to return it, i.e. if impossible to do so, then, to compensate for the value of achieved benefit. It is the matter of acquiring without foundations what represents an obligation law institute which is, in us, regulated by means of the provisions of the Obligation Code Act. That institute is compatible also to labour-law relations, as if the employer who paid out wages compensation to the employee, while he/she was not working, succeeds, based on a final and executive court judgement, subject to a successful revision, to have issued the judgement that the notice of termination was permitted, then he has the right to request the return of such resources from his former employee but only during the time when the employee has not worked. The employer has also right to request the return of paid-out legal severance pay from the employee who succeeded in obtaining the judgement that the employer’s notice of termination was not permitted (legal), as the notice of termination is the legal basis for the payment of a severance pay.
Incentive payments to employees is in the Croatian business practice and labour law either a taboo or the topic of some unfinished projects, which try to present the flexibility of employment legislation in a declarative way, i.e. to formally satisfy the expectations of employers or employees. The entrance into the free market system, especially the global trends of unlimited swapping of goods, services and workforce has imposed to the Republic of Croatia a permanent necessity of adjustment to the organisation of business operations and working relations, in which the arranged economy and employment policy lose from year to year any impact in favour of the free creation of the rules of market competition and individualisation of the business operations. Accordingly, to achieve favourable business results and profit increase it is necessary to make incentive payments to employees in order to reach the defined goals.
The socially responsible business operations of the businessmen have become one of the key factors of competitiveness of the world economies. This represents a current issue in the most EU countries, in which the socially responsible business operations have the main role. This is all aimed at the promotion of the Lisbon Goals – the EU intention to become the most competitive world economy until 2010 based on the economy of knowledge and social cohesion. In order to realise the goals of socially responsible economy the taxation systems have become an important instrument. A special attention is paid to the tax treatment of donations as the activity immanent to the socially responsible economy, as well as to the differences in relation to sponsorship, which is usually wrongly considered the same. The historical development of the socially responsible economy stresses its important mediation and determination by the tax incentives.
Autor: Doc. dr. sc. Nataša ŽUNIĆ-KOVAČEVIĆ, dipl. iur.
SOME ASPECTS OF TIMESHARING CONTRACT In view of a timesharing contract there is a large (legal) emptiness in the Croatian legislation. This will certainly not prevent the development of this legal institute but will only make it more complex and difficult. Nevertheless, it is completely understandable that, if this is one of the ways of the development of tourism (and it surely is) and if tourism is recognised as an important strategic branch of the Croatian economy (and it surely is too), timesharing contracts should be supported. This means that the fundamental thesis is that such contracts are legal and that they should not be avoided. Due to the fact that there is no specific legal regulation – except the Act on Protection of Consumers – in case of any disagreements it will be necessary to determine in which field the particular contract belongs to according to its characteristics.
The statute of limitations is aimed at a stronger legal safety and doubtlessness in the field of circulation of goods and services as well as in the field of execution of individual rights and legal protection of the debtor who has settled his/her debt but has no proof of it. The statute of limitations for periodical receivables i.e. the limitations of the right from which periodical receivables emerge is therefore regulated in the Act on Obligatory Relations in a satisfactory way. However, the above stated Act does not explicitly regulate the term when the third10-year-period of limitation for the receivables determined by the court or some other responsible entity begins. Besides the legal regulations of the new Act on Obligatory Relations from 2005, which refer to the statute of limitations for periodical receivables, this article presents the court practice based on the application of the Act on Obligatory Relations from 1991, which is applicable in the new Act on Obligatory Relations too, since this institute, except some adjustments to the Croatian legal terminology, does not have any significant changes in the contents compared to the regulations in the Act on Obligatory Relations from 1991.
A dangerous item or a dangerous activity are very important factors of causing damages. Therefore, the law-maker has in specific regulations defined the responsibility for such damage. The new Act on Obligatory Relations (similarly to the old one) anticipates the objective responsibility for the damage caused by a dangerous item or a dangerous activity, but includes the cause of the damage made by a dangerous item or a dangerous activity. In the Croatia’s law practice an issue has arisen whether the Republic of Croatia bears the responsibility for the damage caused by a dangerous item if the damage was not made during military activities. The author of this text presents various viewpoints on this issue and argumentatively and concisely concludes that the Republic of Croatia as the owner of a dangerous item can bear the responsibility for the damage caused by a dangerous item even in the case when such a damage was not made during military activities, - referring to the general rules of the responsibility for the damage caused by a dangerous item.
This article determines some basic amendments of the new Takeover Act compared to the previous one. Takeover is a specific procedure which refers to the institute of a joint stock company defined in the above stated Act. The takeover bid is a public tender for the purchase of all the shares that have the right to vote in the general assembly of the target company, under the conditions defined by this Act. The target company may be the public joint stock company only. The point of regulation of the Act refers to submitting the takeover bid, takeover procedure, the rights and liabilities of participants in the procedure, and the control over the process for takeover, which is all interpreted and commented by the author on scientific basis and argumentatively. The body which regulates and supervises takeover in the Republic of Croatia is the Croatian Agency for Supervision of Financial Services.
In the legal doctrine and practice an issue has arisen whether a computer programme can be protected through the regulations on patent protection. A patent is an exclusive right which protects the patent inventor in terms of economic use of the patent and is recognised for each invention in any field of technical science which is new, has the invention level and which can be applied in the field of industry. Since the legal protection of patents has proved to be inadequate due to its high price and long duration, whereby its goal is to protect the invention that represents a new technical solution of some technical problem, which is usually not the case with computer programs, the new Croatian Patent Act explicitly determines that computer programs are not considered as patents. However, the Copyright Act and similar acts determine which works can be considered as author’s works including linguistic works like writings and speaking works like computer programs, which subject to the specific protection in accordance with the European Guidelines on Protection of Computer Programs from 1991.
All kinds of goods can be brought into and out of the customs area of the European Union by application of various customs procedures. The transport of goods over the border is subject to the customs supervision in order to ensure a regular circulation of goods. This primarily includes the payment of customs duties, but also prohibitions and limitations, trade and measures due to political safety as well as other legal regulations referring to the market. The Customs Code includes the corresponding procedure for each transportation of goods over the border. The Code comprises two kinds of procedures: the procedures of noncharging and the procedures of economic importance. The non-charging procedures enable the imports of goods into the customs area of the European Union without customs duties, which means that import duties are not charged. The non-charging procedures comprise the transit procedure, the procedure of customs storing, the procedure of internal production with the application of delay system, the procedure of processing under customs supervision and the procedure of temporary import.
The right to good administration ensures that the institutions, bodies and agencies of the European Union act in each person’s case unbiased, righteously and within a reasonable period. This right includes the right of each person to be heard before making any specific measurement which could unfavourably affect this person; the right of each person to access to their documents, respecting the legitimate interests of confidentiality as well as professional and business secrets; the obligation of the administration to explain its decisions. Each person has the right to indemnity by EU caused by their institutions or their employees upon carrying out their duties according to the general principles and mutual rights of the member countries. Every person can contact the EU institutions in a written form in one of the official languages of the Constitution and has to receive the reply in the same language. Within the framework of the European law, the destiny of this law is indirectly regulated by the Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
