The legal arrangement and the interpretation problems of penalty cla­uses and penal interests

The article deals with a frequent way of obligation safeguarding in the form of a penalty clause. The author describes the position and the place of this safeguarding institute among other ways of safeguarding. Then he compares the penalty clause with a previously used similar institute: so called property sanctions. The author makes the theoretical analysis of penalty clauses and expresses his opinions to the individual conditions for the valid penalty clause and to different possibilities of the differing clauses in the system of the Civil Code and in the system of the Commercial Code. Then he analyses some practical alternatives of clauses and the consequences of such clauses. The article is not just a theoretical view on a penalty clause and a detailed analysis of the contemporary legal arrangement, but as well an instruction for wording of the optimal contracts in relation to penalty clauses.