News

The Czech Republic’s football players were beaten 2:1 by Iceland in Reykjavik on Friday night in a qualification game for next year’s European Championship. The Czechs went ahead through Bořek Dočkal on 55 minutes but conceded two in the next 21 minutes in what was their first defeat of the campaign. The result means Iceland are now two points ahead of the Czech Republic at the top of Group A.

Members of the board of directors and the supervisory board of the ČEZ energy group will not receive bonuses from last year's profit it was decided at a company meeting on Friday. Shareholders decided to pay a 40 crown per share dividend before taxes, the same amount as in previous two years, or about 21.5 billion in total, which is 73 percent of adjusted net profit of the group for 2014, the Czech News Agency reported. The state, which owns about 70 percent of CEZ's shares via the Finance Ministry, will receive 15 billion. Management bonuses will not be paid for the first time since 2001 when ČEZ launched dividend payments to its shareholders. The Finance Ministry came up with the proposal for no rewards to be paid. The management received 25.5 million every year since 2010. The board of directors had proposed the same amount this year also, but the proposal was turned down.

At the same time, the board of directors can still use the share motivation programme. Within the programme, CFO Martin Novak bought 100,000 CEZ shares for 56.4million in May and then sold most of the shares, earning 6.9 million in the transaction, business daily Hospodářské noviny reported.

Additional paratroopers from the Czech 43rd Airborne Battalion departed from Pardubice on Friday to take part in the NATO military exercise Noble Jump 2015 in neighbouring Poland. Sixty-five soldiers left in the second group, a military representative confirmed for the Czech News Agency. In all 150 Czech personnel are taking part. The first group left earlier this week.

The regional court in Hradec Králové has ruled that a local teaching hospital made no mistakes in its treatment of a patient in 2006 and 2007 later found to have a cancerous tumor which spread and eventually took her life. The woman had complained of back pain but did not meet the criteria for an MRI. The judge overseeing the lawsuit said that expert witness assessments showed that an overwhelming majority of health officials would have proceeded in the same manner. Her children had been suing for two million crowns in damages.