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And then there were two. That at least appears to be the final outcome of canvassing for a strategic investor to take over the Czech Republic’s last hard coal mining company, OKD. The mining company, the biggest employer in the Moravia Silesia region with around 11,000 employees, has been the subject of insolvency proceedings since last year.

Czech regulators do not have the greatest of reputations. Some are lacking altogether, such as the one for the water industry and associated charges; others have taken a lot of time to get up steam, such as the rail regulator, and then there is the competition office.

The Czech Entrepreneur of the Year Award, organised by the accounting & consultancy agency firm Ernst & Young, has gone to Tescoma co-founder and co-owner Petr Chmela. The results of the competition for 2016 were announced on Tuesday. Tescoma is a well-known kitchenware company that was established in 1992 in Zlín. Last year the firm, which has hundreds of outlets worldwide, also clinched a number of prestigious awards first excellence in design, such as the Red Dot Award 2016, the Good Design Award and Solutions 2016.

No bill but regular membership fees, good beer and privacy: those are aims of more and more Czechs either founding or joining new so-called beer clubs, meant to replace classic, often ailing pubs in some towns and villages. According to Czech Radio, interest in founding new such clubs has jumped significantly, at least in part as a means of dodging the country’s electronic cash register system launched last December (and about to go into its second wave) as a means of bringing in more tax revenues and clamping down on the grey economy.

The biggest test of the roll-out of the Ministry of Finance’s flagship measure, electronic cash registers or EET as it is known under its Czech acronym, comes on Wednesday.

Czech-based betting company Fortuna has taken a big step towards realizing its target of becoming the biggest sports betting and gaming operator in Central and South-Eastern Europe.

A key piece of anti-corruption and transparency legislation appears to have been gutted by an unholy coalition of lower house lawmakers.

The Czech Republic’s discount chain Lidl, owned by Germany’s Schwarz, has announced its plans to significantly increase employees’ salaries.

Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka has made clear that his party, the Social Democrats (leading the current coalition government) would like to raise taxes on employees earning more than 40,000 crowns per month, and lower the burden for those earning less than 30,000 (the equivalent of around 1,100 euros). Large firms could also pay more under a progressive tax rate, the news site iDnes reports.

Speculation is rising about the when and wherefore of the Czech crown’s exit from the low crown regime. But even amidst this uncertainty, according to central bank governor there is still no likelihood in the short term that the crown will be ditched for the single currency euro.