Analysis of the mandatory publication of foundations’ annual reports in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to analyse whether there has been some progress in the mandatory publication of annual reports of Czech foundations for the years 2001–2014. The foundations handle large financial amounts and should strive for transparency by providing information about their economic activities as stated in their annual reports. They are available in the Collection of Documents run by the Commercial Court, where annual reports are published. In the past, several researches have taken place to found out how many foundations do fulfill this duty, and have had quite different results. This article shows a conclusion to the current research, which was aimed at 2012–2014 and compares the current findings with previous results. Data for the research were gained from the Collection of Documents and subsequently analysed. Based on this analysis and a comparison with previous findings, it can be concluded that there was almost no improvement in terms of an increase in published annual reports; still less than 50% of foundations release their annual reports. Of these, less than one third of foundations meet their obligations regularly and, in addition, more than half of the foundations do not submit their annual reports at all.