Police at reception: mistakes in the first minutes threaten a company more than the visit itself

Police interest in a company does not in itself mean the company is a suspect. A wrong reaction in the first minutes of a police visit or search of business premises can, however, put the police on a trail that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Most entrepreneurs associate the police at their registered office with a single image: a search of the premises, computers carried away, operations at a standstill. Reality tends to be more mundane. Most often the police want contracts, invoices or security camera footage because they are investigating someone else — a supplier, a customer or a business partner. Even so, a criminal law expert and lecturer at the CHTK Institute recommended maximum caution in such a situation in a recent interview for Právní prostor. In our view, it is precisely this ordinariness that is treacherous: anyone who feels like a merely helpful witness will easily comply with anything. Anyone who panics, on the other hand, stops communicating altogether. Both reactions, which the interviewee lists among the most common mistakes, can in our opinion harm a company more than the reason for the visit itself.

We agree with the main thesis of the interview, but we want to make it more precise. In our view the key lies not in the speed of the reaction, as the slogan about the "first minute" might suggest, but in the order of steps: first find out who is acting and on what legal basis, and only then deal with what the company will hand over and how.

At the outset, the company does not know what role it is in

The least comfortable truth of the whole interview: until the company receives a resolution commencing criminal prosecution, it cannot be said reliably whether, for the police, it is merely a holder of information or already a subject of interest. The interviewee openly admits this and recommends that the company form its view together with a lawyer who can tell from the details of the procedure and the conduct of the police authority where the matter is heading. That is sober and correct. Criminal proceedings initially conducted against a third party may over time turn against the company itself. At that point it is no longer a witness role but the criminal liability of legal entities under Czech law, and everything the company previously handed over or said voluntarily and without thinking stays in the file.

That is why the description of typical mistakes is interesting. According to the interview, companies under stress swing from one extreme to the other. They either refuse any communication or comply with every informal request, even where they have no legal obligation to do so. According to the interview, the police sometimes ask for data orally or by a general letter without stating which provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure they are relying on. And companies sometimes cooperate even where, for procedural reasons, they could or should lawfully refuse. Add to this the human factor: nervousness, downplaying the situation or, conversely, aggressiveness can put the police on a trail they would otherwise not have noticed.

Two things must be held at the same time here. The duty to cooperate in criminal proceedings exists, and the interview stresses that every citizen and every company must comply with it by law. Its scope, however, depends on what procedural act is involved and what it is based on. The interview does not name specific provisions, so no general rule can be derived from it as to exactly when a company must comply and when it may refuse. In practice, we believe this leads to one recommendation: when a company receives a police request for cooperation, it should, according to the manual attached to the interview, ask for a written order or the section of the Code of Criminal Procedure on which the police are acting, and have it assessed before handing anything over. Politely, without obstruction, but also without automatic willingness.

Searches, company e-mails and servers that cannot be taken away

In everyday speech, any police entry into premises is often called a house search. In a business setting, however, the interview speaks of searches of other premises and land and notes that they are increasingly common. On company mail the answer is unpleasantly clear: according to the interview, the police can routinely request the electronic communications of management and owners as well. Seizing e-mail mailboxes is absolutely standard during searches. Anyone relying on the police being satisfied with binders is living in the last decade.

That does not mean, however, that a company should open all its mail at the first oral request. The interview lists as a typical mistake precisely the situation where a company complies with an informal request without being legally obliged to, and the manual advises first asking for a written order, for example a search warrant or an order to surrender an item, or the specific section of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In our opinion, this caution applies doubly to e-mails and personal data, because management mailboxes usually also contain data of employees, clients and business partners. What effects a written order has in a specific case, and exactly where the limits of the company's obligation lie, the source does not address, and we do not fill that gap with general reasoning. That is a question for a lawyer who sees the specific document.

The most practically valuable passage concerns manufacturing companies. Where the police demand servers or data whose removal would stop production lines, in the interviewee's experience it is basically always possible to agree a reasonable procedure with the police authority. But strong and logical arguments must be made in a polite and comprehensible form. The interview mentions handing over data in stages, making mirror copies of disks or handing over documentation at a time that does not endanger critical operations. Note that this is a practitioner's experience, not the company's entitlement. Polite and factual argument evidently works better than protest, though. And a company can only make it if it knows in advance which systems are critical and how quickly they can be copied.

Preparedness cannot be improvised at reception

How to react to the police at company premises is not decided when officers are standing at the entrance, but months before. According to the interview, the greatest and least controllable risk is the company's own employees. A rank-and-file worker who starts talking or speculating out of fear can do more damage than any document. The rule is simple: only people with the appropriate position, competence and, ideally, training communicate with the police, and only when the police ask them to. Everyone else should immediately contact their superior or the legal department and stay out of the conversation. This also covers informal chats over coffee that seem innocent. Whatever is said at this stage may be used in the proceedings.

The manual attached to the interview divides the reaction into three phases. From them one can put together the contents of an internal procedure that a company should have in writing before it needs it:

• who at reception asks for police ID cards, writes down names, badge numbers and the unit, and asks for the written order or the provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure under which the police are acting;
• who is the company's sole spokesperson (usually the managing director or in-house lawyer) and the contact details of the criminal defence lawyer to be called immediately;
• which systems and data are critical for operations and how to copy them quickly instead of hardware being taken away;
• who keeps a running record of which binders, computers and e-mail mailboxes the police inspect or seize.

Two points of the manual deserve a comment. The recommendation to ask the officer in charge to wait for the lawyer to arrive before carrying out any acts really is only a request. The manual does not claim that the police must comply, and the company should not count on it as a certainty. The second point is the record. It must be read carefully before signing, and if the company disagrees with the procedure, it should have its objections entered directly in it. An objection missing from the record is much harder to prove later.

For manufacturing and trading companies, including those in South Bohemia, this means a fairly concrete task: write a one-page procedure, appoint a spokesperson, train reception staff and shift managers, and have the phone number of a lawyer who handles criminal matters at hand. We represent companies in proceedings that may follow such a visit as part of our litigation and arbitration practice. The cheapest phase of protection, however, is the one when the police are nowhere in sight.

Source: Právní prostor, interview with a criminal law expert from the CHTK Institute: When the police ring at a company: a visit need not mean trouble, but mistakes in the first minute are fatal (in Czech), 20 October 2026