You need to freeze the situation immediately—

When a motion makes sense and when it's just an expensive gesture

A motion for an interim measure makes sense where, without immediate intervention, a later judgment would lose its value. This typically involves asset stripping before debt enforcement, dealing with real estate that is the subject of a dispute, the use of a trade secret, or interference with operations that generates damages every day. What they have in common is the difficulty of rectifying the consequences; the harder it is to reverse the situation, the stronger the argument for urgency, although the law does not stipulate irreversibility itself as a condition.

On the other hand, it does not make sense where you just want to speed up the recovery of a regular receivable. Although the content of a provisional arrangement may in some cases be close to what you are seeking in a lawsuit, the court weighs the interests of both parties much more strictly in such motions and requires special reasons on the part of the applicant. For unpaid invoices with no other circumstances, a payment order is therefore a faster route.

Securing a debtor's assets in execution, on the other hand, requires an enforcement order, so an unpaid invoice alone is not enough. The debt recovery process, including the choice between a demand letter, a payment order, and a lawsuit, is discussed in a separate text on debt recovery from A to Z. An interim measure does not address the debtor's unwillingness to pay, but the threat that the situation will change in a way that cannot be reversed before a judgment is rendered.

The second distinguishing criterion is whether you can document the situation with evidence immediately. The court decides based on what it has in the case file and has neither the time nor the space to supplement the evidence. If you only have suspicions and verbal information from an employee, the motion will not succeed, even if your description is true and even if it is later proven. The documentary evidence is therefore decisive at the time of filing, not during the proceedings.

The third criterion is the economics of the whole matter, and this is calculated before the legal arguments. The costs include the security deposit, the lawyer's fee, and, most importantly, the risk that you will have to pay damages to the other party. Against this stands the value of what you save. If the ratio is close, it is usually better to invest in a quick lawsuit and in securing evidence than in a measure that you cannot sustain.

The fourth criterion is whether there is a less severe means by which the same can be achieved. Courts assess the proportionality of the intervention, and a motion that requests the harshest possible measure without explaining why a narrower prohibition is not sufficient is more easily rejected. It is therefore worthwhile to explicitly state in the motion what you have considered and why it is not sufficient.

The two grounds on which the motion stands

Before the commencement of proceedings, the presiding judge may order an interim measure if it is necessary to provisionally regulate the relations of the parties, or if there is a concern that the enforcement of a court decision would be jeopardized (Section 74 of the Code of Civil Procedure). These two grounds are not to be confused, and each is substantiated differently. The choice between them determines what you must describe in the motion and what documents belong with it.

A provisional regulation of relations is aimed at situations where it is necessary to arrange the relationship between the parties for the duration of the dispute: to refrain from certain conduct, to tolerate something, to perform something. The concern about the enforcement of a decision, on the other hand, is aimed at property, i.e., typically a prohibition on disposing of assets or rights. In the second case, you must substantiate not only your claim but also the specific circumstances from which the reasonable concern arises; a general assertion of poor payment morale is not enough.

The decisive factor is the difference between proving and substantiating, and this is underestimated in practice. The court will order the measure if it is proven that it is necessary to provisionally regulate the relations or that there is a concern about the enforcement of the decision, and if the facts decisive for imposing the obligation are at least substantiated (Section 75c of the Code of Civil Procedure). You must therefore support the urgency more strongly than the claim itself.

The law also states at which point all this is assessed: the decisive factor is the state of affairs at the time of the pronouncement or issuance of the first-instance court's order. In a recent finding, the Constitutional Court inferred from this that the court cannot be satisfied with assertions that were current when the motion was filed but have since become outdated, and that it should have at least invited the applicant to substantiate their currency (Constitutional Court finding file no. III. ÚS 721/26 of 30 July 2026).

This was an exceptional case where a year and a half had passed between the substantiated state of affairs and the decision due to disputes over local jurisdiction, so a general rule about the court's obligation to invite the applicant before every decision cannot be inferred from the finding. In practical terms, however, it means that if the proceedings are prolonged, it is up to you to update the documents yourself: a fresh extract from the Cadastral Register or a new screenshot of a website sent without being prompted takes an hour of work and keeps the motion alive.

What to prepare before you file the motion

The steps below describe the usual procedure in a commercial dispute between entrepreneurs; whether it will hold up in your case depends on the nature of the right at risk and what you are able to document with evidence — which is why the lawyers at ARROWS law firm assess this before anything is filed.

The first step is to compile the documentary file, not to write the motion. You need the contract or proof of the origin of the right, correspondence capturing the other party's conduct, extracts from public registers, and any proof that the situation is deteriorating. The applicant is obliged to attach to the motion the documents they are invoking, and supplementing them later is unreliable because the court may decide sooner.

The second step is to formulate exactly what the court should order. The operative part of the order must be enforceable, i.e., specific enough for an executor or the Cadastral Office to act upon it. A formulation such as "the defendant is prohibited from damaging the applicant's good name" is unenforceable; "the defendant is prohibited from disposing of the land plot no. ... in the cadastral area of ..." is enforceable.

The third step is to deposit the security, and this has a strict deadline. To secure compensation for damages or other harm, the applicant is obliged to deposit, no later than on the same day they filed the motion, a security of CZK 10,000, and in matters concerning relations between entrepreneurs arising from business activities, a security of CZK 50,000 (Section 75b of the Code of Civil Procedure). If the security is not deposited, the court will reject the motion.

The law provides for exceptions to this obligation, but they only marginally affect commercial disputes: maintenance matters, labor matters, and whistleblower protection matters, personal injury compensation matters, as well as certification of the conditions for exemption from court fees, and finally, danger in delay, where the applicant substantiates that they could not deposit the security through no fault of their own. In a dispute between entrepreneurs, therefore, count on fifty thousand crowns.

Also, count on the possibility of a supplementary payment. If the presiding judge concludes that the deposited security is clearly insufficient, or that it is a repeated motion requesting the same or a similar arrangement in a matter involving the same parties for similar reasons, they will invite the applicant to deposit a supplement in an amount they determine within three days. Failure to deposit the supplement is a reason to cancel an already ordered measure.

The fourth step is to prepare the statement of claim in the main action. When ordering the measure, the court will order you to file a motion to initiate proceedings within a specified period, and if you do not, the measure will lapse. Having the lawsuit drafted at the time of filing the motion is therefore not extra work, but a condition for the measure to last longer than a few weeks.

What the court can order and to whom

The law lists what can be imposed on a party: to deposit a sum of money or an object in court custody, not to dispose of certain assets or rights, to perform something, to refrain from something, or to tolerate something (Section 76 of the Code of Civil Procedure). The list is not exhaustive, but it follows the logic of provisionality: the measure is intended to freeze the situation, not to resolve it.

What is essential for corporate disputes is that an obligation can also be imposed on someone other than a party. The law permits this only if it can be fairly required of such a person. This is how situations are handled where it is necessary to intervene with a bank, a service provider, or someone who holds the disputed property and is not a party to the dispute themselves. It is precisely here that most motions in corporate disputes give rise to a dispute about proportionality.

Distinguish between two different positions. The order is served on the person on whom the measure directly imposes an obligation, and the operative part is binding on them, so they can defend themselves against it like any other addressee of the operative part. A different position is held by someone on whom the operative part imposes no obligation and who is only affected by the measure factually; for such an entity, the Constitutional Court, in the cited finding, concluded that they have no effective procedural remedy.

A motion aimed at someone other than the opposing party must therefore explain why a less severe path directly against them is not available. With these measures, the court weighs the interference with the rights of persons who have not entered the proceedings, and the requirements for justification are significantly higher than for a standard prohibition addressed to the opposing party. Without this explanation, the motion will generally not succeed, even if it is otherwise well-documented.

The third thing to keep in mind is the moment the measure takes effect. The order is enforceable upon its pronouncement, and if it was not pronounced, upon its delivery to the person on whom it imposes an obligation. A copy is sent within three days, and in the case of a prohibition on disposing of real estate, also to the relevant Cadastral Office, so there is a short delay between the decision and the entry in the Cadastral Register.

However, this delay is not a window for a transfer. A legal act that violated an obligation imposed by an enforceable order is invalid, and in the case of a prohibition on disposing of a certain immovable property, a proposal for registration of which a final decision has not yet been made also loses its legal effect — even if the legal act was made before the measure became enforceable (Section 76f of the Code of Civil Procedure).

Special attention should be paid to the prohibition on disposing of a share in a business corporation, which is appearing more and more frequently in corporate disputes. In addition to the entry in the commercial register, it is necessary to remember that the transfer of a share and the exercise of voting rights are two different things; a measure prohibiting the transfer does not prevent a shareholder from pushing through a decision at a general meeting that reduces the value of the share.

Whether a broader prohibition will hold up in your case, or whether a narrowly defined intervention on specific assets is more viable, depends on the nature of the right at risk and who actually holds the assets — that's why the lawyers at ARROWS law firm tailor it to the specific situation, not to a template.

Finally, bear in mind that the measure is temporary by definition. It will lapse if you do not file a lawsuit within the specified period, if the motion in the main action was not granted, if the period for which it was ordered has expired, or fifteen days after the decision in the main action that was granted becomes enforceable. The court will also cancel it if the reasons for which it was ordered cease to exist.

The price of failure: the applicant's liability for damages

This is the part that companies most often overlook when making decisions. If the ordered measure has lapsed or been cancelled for a reason other than that the motion in the main action was granted or that your right was satisfied, you are obliged to compensate for the damage and other harm caused to anyone by it (Section 77a of the Code of Civil Procedure). This liability cannot be waived unless the damage would have occurred otherwise.

The liability is therefore strict and does not depend on whether you filed the motion in good faith. It also includes damage caused to third parties affected by the measure, which is a significant item in cases of interference with operations or asset freezes. The deposited security is used to satisfy these claims, and if it is not sufficient, the court will divide it among the injured parties proportionally; your remaining debt does not thereby cease to exist.

The injured party has six months from the day the measure lapsed or was finally cancelled to file a lawsuit, and this deadline cannot be waived. For you, this means that you are not yet out of the woods after the measure lapses and that it is advisable to hold a reserve for this item until the deadline expires, or until the dispute over compensation is concluded.

The statutory liability towards the injured party cannot be contractually excluded, and whether a specific risk is covered by your insurance policy is a question of its terms. Check this before you file the motion, not when the demand for compensation arrives. Otherwise, you are left with only one tool, and that is a sober estimate of both figures beforehand.

Weigh the value of what you will save by the freeze against the estimated damage the measure will cause to the other party. How to defend against a claim for damages is discussed in the text on defending against a major claim for damages. For the decision on the motion, however, it is more important that the claim arises even if you acted honestly and just did not see the dispute through to the end.

Mistakes for which the court will reject the motion without a hearing on the merits

The most common mistake is a security deposit that is not paid or is paid late. The deadline is the same day as the filing of the motion, and in such a case, the court will reject the motion without considering whether it is well-founded. Therefore, send the money in advance, not in the same hour as the filing, and attach proof of payment to the motion. For a cashless transfer, do not rely on the transfer being reflected in the court's account on the same day.

The second mistake is an unenforceable operative part. The court will reject the motion if it does not contain all the required elements or is incomprehensible or vague, and these deficiencies prevent the proceedings from continuing; the usual procedure for correcting defects in a filing is not applied here. The text of the operative part must therefore be fine-tuned before filing, ideally so that it can be copied into the order without change.

The third mistake is a motion based on assertions without documents. The court decides without hearing the parties and relies on what it has in the case file, so the usual taking of evidence does not take place at this stage. Attach even what you consider to be self-evident, including an extract from the other party's commercial register and correspondence from which the timeline is clear. A dated timeline of events is often more persuasive than extensive legal reasoning.

Whether your documentary file is strong enough to support the urgency, or whether the motion will only trigger liability for damages, can only be determined by comparing the specific documents with what the court has to substantiate — that's why the lawyers at ARROWS law firm go through it with you before filing.

The fourth mistake is a repeated motion filed after rejection without any change. The law explicitly provides for a repeated motion and links it to the possibility of being asked for a supplementary security deposit. It makes sense if the factual situation has changed, if you have supplemented documents that were previously missing, or if you have reformulated the operative part to finally be enforceable.

The situation in which this tool proves most useful in practice is discussed in the text on what to do when a partner bypasses your company and goes directly to your customers. There, what is often missing in other disputes is usually available: dated correspondence from which the interference is apparent without further interpretation, and thus demonstrable urgency.

Final summary

The article has shown that an interim measure is not a tool to speed up a dispute, but to prevent a change that can no longer be reversed, and that its success is decided by the quality of the documents and the precision of the operative part, not by the strength of the argumentation. Urgency is substantiated more strongly than the claim itself, and the court decides only on the basis of what it has in the case file.

For company management, two numbers and one question are essential. The first number is the value of what you will save by the freeze. The second is an estimate of the damage the measure would cause to the other party, because that is exactly what you will have to pay if things do not work out. The question is whether you can document your claim with evidence today; if not, the motion is premature.

Delay works differently here than in a regular dispute. Every day of delay increases the likelihood that the assets will be transferred or that the information will spread, and at the same time weakens the assertion of urgency, because the court will ask why you did not act sooner. The law does not provide a firm deadline in days, but the delay must be explained in the motion, not passed over in silence.

The Prague-based legal team at ARROWS law firm will assess the chances of your motion, compile the documentary file and an enforceable operative part, monitor the security deposit and subsequent deadlines, and represent you in the proceedings for the measure and in the dispute itself. Write to us at consultation@arws.cz or browse our commercial and litigation service.