About

Petr Prouza’s vast experience of legal work prior to his role with Česká telekomunikační infrastruktura (CETIN) was drawn exclusively from external legal roles at top international legal firms. Nevertheless, when the opportunity to join CETIN as general counsel in June 2015 came up, Prouza reports that he ‘did not hesitate much’ before accepting. His time with CETIN since then has been busy, and he comments that he and the company have faced ‘many challenges’ over the last two years. Elaborating on these challenges, Prouza says, ‘firstly there was the separation from O2 and follow up actions (over 25 commercial agreements between CETIN and O2, finalising the separation of IT and other systems and related issues). Secondly, defending the position of the company in front of the European Commission in relation to the network sharing scheme with T-Mobile which is being investigated. Thirdly, [was obtaining] external financing of CETIN via a syndicated loan of approximately CZK 32bn in 2015 and through issuing Eurobonds in the amount of approximately €1bn in 2016’. Prouza has had the opportunity to develop the CETIN legal team himself since taking over. As to what he prioritised when it came to building the legal team, Prouza mentions the following: ‘All I have done was to ensure that the legal department and each of the lawyers are pushed to an upper level of service – I was lucky to be able to use over ten years of experience in top law offices as a basis for this. I can see that this extra effort brings quicker responsibility times and higher quality of dealing with particular issues’.