Member Article

A new BIG GUARANTEE SCHEME was introduced in Slovakia in a form of (i) guarantees for bank loansand (ii) remissions of guarantee premiums as per new Temporary Framework for State aid recently adopted by the European Commission to support the economy in COVID-19 outbreak and via adoption of an amendment (the “Amendment”) to Act No. 67/2020 Coll. on certain extraordinary measures in the area of finance in relation to the spread of dangerous contagious human disease COVID-19 (the “Act”) enacted by the National Council of the Slovak Republic on 13 May 2020.

The financial aid measures under so-called “BIG GUARANTEE SCHEME” in the volume of approx. EUR 500 mil. each month are designed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the businesses in Slovakia and to facilitate the access of SMEs as well as large enterprises to operational (COVID-19 crisis bridging) financing, i.e. to facilitate the access to financial liquidity.

The Amendment to the Act shall be published in the Collection of Laws of the Slovak Republic in the coming days and shall become effective at the date of its publication in the Collection of Laws of the Slovak Republic.

You can read more on the main parameters of the BIG GUARANTEE SCHEME, conditions for SME’s and large enterprises’ eligibility for this financial aid and criteria for use of this financial aid in our legal update prepared by Simona Halakova and Miroslav Zaťko of our Banking & Finance team on 14 May 2020 based on the finally adopted text of the Amendment to the Act, as published by the National Council of the Slovak Republic, while also using publicly available information as of 14 May 2020 (mainly as officially published by Slovak Investment Holding, a.s.).

Full version of this legal update you can find in the PDF document BIG GUARANTEE SCHEME.