“Acquis communautaire” and the National Legal Practice (With Respect to the “Ad Hoc Competitor”)

The winged expression “acquis communautaire” does not refer only to the facts that the individual EU member states apply the immediately effective norms of Community law, that the European directives are properly transposed, and that the decision-making practice of the European Court of Justice is being respected. A significant body of normative solutions, decision-making principles, and purposeful procedures is also provided by the legal practice in the individual member states, i.e., by practices of norm-making, legal advisory, company law, judicial judgments, and administrative decisions. The present article points out how the familiarity with two Austrian decisions could have facilitated and speeded up the decision in a Czech case, whose nature was not unique.