Has anyone ever seen a company ? Does the company have emotions, feelings ? Can the company rejoice, grieve ? And can it be offended ? Classically: only a human being can be offended, a human being (=individual) has personal goods, and these goods are protected by Article 23 of the Civil Code.  However, if an artificial intelligence can already be offended, why not a company ?

The basic catalogue of personal interests consist of health, freedom, honour, freedom of conscience, name or alias, image, secrecy of correspondence, inviolability of dwelling, scientific, artistic, inventive and rationalization creativity. Intuitively, however, we can pick out from this catalogue some values that may also be important for legal entities – honour, image, creativity… Therefore, for years, legal doctrine, followed by case law, has attributed more and more rights to legal entities in this regard. The resolution of the Supreme Court of 3.10.2023, ref. III CZP 22/23, clearly indicated that a legal person can demand from the entity that violated his personal rights to pay compensation for the harm suffered on the basis of Article 448 § 1 of the Civil Code in conjunction with Article 43 of the Civil Code.

The personal rights of a legal person are non-material values that allow a legal person to function in accordance with its scope of activities (judgment of the Supreme Court of 20.2.2020, IV CSK 518/18, Legalis), that is, to operate peacefully in the market without any restrictions. As in the case of individuals, the catalogue is also open and can include, among others: good fame, i.e. reputation and renown, which is equivalent to the good honour of an individual, as well as the name or company, inviolability of premises related to the activity, secrecy of correspondence, freedom to conduct statutory activities.

According to Article 43 of the Civil Code, the provisions on the protection of personal property of natural persons apply mutatis mutandis to legal persons, so all the measures for the protection of personal property for natural persons provided by the Civil Code also apply to legal persons. These measures are protected by means of non-property claims, i.e. claims for cessation and elimination of the consequences of the violation, as well as property claims – a claim for monetary compensation for the harm suffered or the award of an appropriate sum of money for a social purpose designated by him, as provided for in Article 448 § 1 of the Civil Code.

In the justification of the resolution of the Supreme Court, we can read: “the appropriate application of Article 43 of the Civil Code to legal entities justifies the definition of the harm referred to in Article 448 of the Civil Code as non-pecuniary damage, resulting from the violation of the personal good of a legal entity, consisting in the inability or impediment to the proper conduct of its business as before. The award of monetary compensation to a legal entity is not intended to provide satisfaction or compensate for its physical or mental suffering, but to protect its objectively understood interests related to its personal property.”

In order for legal protection to be granted on this basis, it is necessary to examine such circumstances as the type of business conducted, the type of personal property violated, as well as the scale of the violation.

Let’s protect the personal goods of our companies, these are hard-to-measure but important values of companies.