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Act amending Act No 159/1999 on certain business conditions and activities in the field of tourism submitted in the scope of the draft amendment proposed by Mr Dolínek on the proposal of the Council of the City of Prague on the enactment of the Act amending Act No 455/1991 on trade licensing (the Trade Licensing Act), as amended (Parliamentary Print No 247)

The Draft concerns the obligation of online brokers (online platforms) to disclose relevant data on service providers to the municipal trade licensing office upon its request. The data which the municipal trade licensing office will be authorised to request from online platforms relates both to the identification of service providers and to the scope of the services provided. The trade licensing office will be authorised to transfer the data to other bodies exercising public authority. It is proposed that failure to fulfil this obligation be an offence for which the municipal trade licensing office will be authorised to impose an administrative penalty. The requirement is justified by the public interest in ensuring public order and equal conditions on the travel service market. Without the aforementioned information, the supervisory bodies are not able to investigate suspected offences. Without supervision and control of compliance with legal duties, significant inequality would be created between competitors on the market, in which individual entities (circumventing or violating the law) would not have the same expenses for doing business as other entities who have additional costs associated with proper compliance with the law. Unauthorised business activity which causes more than negligible damages is then classified as a criminal offence under the Criminal Code.

Keywords:

online broker, service provider, data disclosure, monitoring activity