We are often approached by clients with a wide range of legal dilemmas they encounter at work. In particular, clients entrust us with drafting and reviewing various contracts in Slovenian or English, optimising the internal organisation of work, working hours, payment for work or improving employment and management contracts.
Thus, we solve many problems daily in the fields of commercial law (establishment and transformation of companies, preparation of internal acts...), law of obligations (consulting in concluding contracts, drawing up or reviewing various contracts, preparing and/or participating in negotiations, drawing up, reviewing and interpreting all types of contracts, support in enforcing rights and obligations arising from concluded contracts...), labour law (consulting on rights from the employment relationship, drawing up an employment contract, optimisation of the internal organisation of work, working hours, payment for work or improvement of employment contracts and management...), protection of personal data, public information, to name just a few areas in which we have specialised and trained at the request of our clients who trust us.
The Institute for Public-Private Partnership team covers the topics mentioned above with extensive experience. It would be difficult to contact us with a "nut" that we would not be able to crack because, in areas that are not primarily our priority, we cooperate with competent external colleagues. Our network of experts is constantly growing for all of you who often encounter legal issues that you are unsure about.
We approach each contract with special joy, as it represents the end of a long process and efforts that led to the conclusion of the contract itself and, at the same time, an opportunity to realise everything that we have written in the contract. Every contract is unique, so in our work, we avoid typical and standardised contracts.
The principle of Roman law pacta sunt servanda means that, after the contract has been concluded, the contracting parties are bound to perform their accepted obligations, as agreed upon at the time of the conclusion of the contract. Contract parties often become aware of this principle too late when problems arise with the implementation of the contract and the fulfilment of the obligations under the contract. It happens all too often that contracting parties enter into binding relationships recklessly, which is why advice and review of the contract by an experienced legal expert is welcome, especially in the case of more important contracts.
The field of concluding contractual obligations in the Republic of Slovenia is governed by the Code of Obligations, which in Article 15 stipulates that a contract shall be deemed concluded when the contracting parties agree upon its essence.
This means that the contract is binding, even if the parties did not agree on non-essential components, which leads to misunderstandings in the implementation of the contracts, which can also result in greater damage to the individual contracting party.
The preparation of clear contracts that comprehensively regulate all open questions regarding the contractual relationship and the control over the implementation of such a contract is, therefore, key to the successful realisation of projects. A contract is a basis on which the legal relationship between two parties is built. Balanced, consistent and unambiguous contractual provisions are a prerequisite for the ongoing fulfilment of contractual obligations.
In legal transactions, standard or model contracts are often used, the quality of which depends on the expertise of the drafter of the model contract. In this case, we suggest that the contracting party forward the model contract to a legal expert for review, who will adapt it to the actual state of the concrete relationship.
In the procedures for concluding public contracts, i.e. contracts that are concluded on the basis of public procurement procedures, concession contracts and other contracts concluded in public-private partnerships – in Slovenia, unfortunately, most of the attention is often devoted to the procedure for concluding a public contract, which is highly formalised, while the creation of quality essence of the contract is often side-lined. Also, especially in the case of public contracts, significantly insufficient attention is paid to monitoring the implementation of contracts.
Within the Institute for Public-Private Partnership, we pay special attention to the analysis of contractual provisions and the drafting of various types of contracts. This is particularly important in public contracts, and special attention is also paid to contracts in which classic civil law elements are mixed with public law elements.
Due to the increasing cooperation with entities outside the Republic of Slovenia and involvement in the international arena, our clients began to turn to us more and more often with requests for the preparation and review of contracts in English. The results were exceptional, so we decided to offer this service to a broader range of clients, not just our regular customers. If you require support in coordinating the contract in English, we guarantee that the task will be carried out at the highest possible level.
Through legal support to our regular clients facing various problems in business organisation and adoption of internal acts, we have gained valuable experience that we enjoy sharing further.
Each entity (company, sole proprietor, ministry, municipality, public institution, public company, etc.) must have, depending on its status, the scope of business and its activity, adopted key internal acts which regulate the rules of conduct, as a rule, regarding:
Some acts are already mandatory based on the applicable regulations, while for others, it is recommended that the employer adopt them and thereby normatively regulate the company's operations. Fines for the absence of key internal acts generally amount to EUR 2,000 to EUR 40,000.
However, the employer's obligations do not end with the adoption of such acts, as it is also necessary to enforce them and periodically review the compliance of the adopted acts with the applicable regulations.
