This thesis deals with the possibilities of financing export contract in the company. The theoretical part provides an insight into the opportunities that companies currently have in financing their activities. There is an overview of the various forms of internal and external financing and their basic characteristics. The practical part is focused on a specific business case and options for financing various parts of the contract. The conclusion provides a comprehensive overview of the variations, their comparisons and recommendations of the best one from the complex perspective.

Cette thèse porte sur le développement d'approches compositionnelles et efficaces de synthèse de contrôleurs pour les systèmes cyber-physiques (CPS). En effet, alors que les techniques de conception des CPS basées sur des modèles ont fait l'objet de nombreuses études au cours de la dernière décennie, leur scalabilité reste problématique. Dans cette thèse, nous contribuons à rendre de telles approches plus évolutives.La première partie est axée sur les approches compositionnelles. Un cadre général pour le raisonnement compositionnel en utilisant des contrats d’hypothèse-garantie est proposé. Ce cadre est ensuite combiné avec des techniques de contrôle symbolique et appliqué à un problème de synthèse de contrôleur pour des systèmes échantillonnés, distribués et multipériodiques, où l'approche symbolique est utilisé pour synthétiser un contrôleur imposant un contrat donné. Ensuite, une nouvelle approche de calcul compositionnel des abstractions symboliques est proposée, basée sur la notion de composition approchée et permettant de traiter des abstractions hétérogènes.La deuxième partie de la thèse porte sur des techniques efficaces d'abstraction et de synthèse de contrôleurs. Deux nouvelles techniques de calcul d’abstractions sont proposées pour les systèmes à commutation incrémentalement stables. La première approche est basée sur l'échantillonnage multi-niveaux où nous avons établi l'existence d'un paramètre optimal d'échantillonnage qui aboutit à un modèle symbolique avec un nombre minimal de transitions. La deuxième approche est basée sur un échantillonnage événementiel, où la durée des transitions dans le modèle symbolique est déterminée par un mécanisme déclencheur, ce qui permet de réduire le conservatisme par rapport au cas périodique. La combinaison avec des techniques de synthèse de contrôleurs paresseux est proposée permettant la synthèse à un coût de calcul réduit. Enfin, une nouvelle approche de synthèse paresseuse a été développée pour les systèmes de transition monotones et les spécifications de sécurité dirigées. Plusieurs études de cas sont considérées dans cette thèse, telles que la régulation de la température dans les bâtiments, le contrôle des convertisseurs de puissance, le pilotage des véhicules et le contrôle de la tension dans les micro-réseaux DC. / This thesis focus on the development of compositional and efficient controller synthesis approaches for cyber-physical systems (CPS). Indeed, while model-based techniques for CPS design have been the subject of a large amount of research in the last decade, scalability of these techniques remains an issue. In his thesis, we contribute to make such approaches more scalable.The focus of the first part is on compositional approaches. A general framework for compositional reasoning using assume-guarantee contracts is proposed. This framework is then combined with symbolic control techniques and applied to a controller synthesis problem for multiperiodic distributed sampled-data systems, where symbolic approaches have been used to synthesize controllers enforcing a given assume-guarantee contract. Then, a new approach to the compositional computation of symbolic abstractions is proposed based on the notion of approximate composition, allowing to deal with heterogeneous abstractions and arbitrary interconnections.The second part is about efficient abstraction and controller synthesis techniques. Two new abstractions schemes have been developed for incrementally stable switched systems. The first approach is based on multirate sampling where we established the existence of an optimal multirate sampling parameter that results in a symbolic model with a minimal number of transitions. The second approach is based on event-based sampling, where the duration of transitions in the symbolic model is determined by some triggering mechanism, which makes it possible to reduce the conservatism with respect to the periodic case. Combination with lazy controller synthesis techniques has been proposed allowing the synthesis at a reduced computational cost. Finally, a new lazy approach has been develop for monotone transition systems and directed safety specifications. Several case studies have been considered in this thesis such as temperature regulation in buildings, control of power converters, vehicle platooning and voltage control in DC micro-grids.

À l’ère de la mondialisation, les transactions commerciales internationales occupent une importance capitale dans l’économie mondiale. Dans ce type de transaction, les parties se trouvent dans des États différents ce qui rend difficile l’établissement d’une relation de confiance. Cette problématique peut être atténuée par un engagement que prend un tiers, généralement une institution financière, qui émet soit une lettre de crédit dont le bénéficiaire sera le vendeur, soit une lettre de garantie dont le bénéficiaire sera le plus souvent un acheteur. Ainsi, les lettres de garanties jouent un rôle fondamental dans le commerce international en assurant à un créancier d’une obligation de recevoir un paiement dans le cas où le débiteur ne respecte pas ses obligations. Cependant, dans certains cas, les demandes de paiement des lettres de garanties peuvent être frauduleuses. En ce sens, en matière de lettre de garantie une question fondamentale se pose : en cas de fraude, dans quelles circonstances les tribunaux accorderont une injonction pour empêcher le paiement d’être effectué? La thèse qui sera soutenue est que les circonstances dans lesquelles les tribunaux accorderont une injonction varieront selon les différentes juridictions. Dans un premier temps, les conditions générales d’exercices des lettres de garanties seront abordées. Dans une deuxième partie, les circonstances spécifiques dans lesquelles différents tribunaux nationaux accordent des injonctions afin d’empêcher le paiement de la garantie seront étudiées. / In the era of globalization, international business transactions are of paramount importance in the global economy. In this type of transaction, parties are located in different states, which makes it difficult to establish a relationship of trust. This problem can be mitigated by a commitment made by a third party, generally a financial institution, which issues either a letter of credit whose beneficiary will be the seller, or a letter of guarantee whose beneficiary will most often be a buyer. Thus, letters of guarantee play a fundamental role in international trade by assuring a creditor of an obligation to receive payment in the event that the debtor fails to meet its obligations. However, in some cases, requests for payment of letters of guarantee may be fraudulent. In this sense, when it comes to letters of guarantee, a fundamental question arises: in the event of fraud, in what circumstances will the courts grant an injunction in order to prevent payment? The thesis that will be argued is that the circumstances in which courts will grant an injunction will vary in different jurisdictions. First, the general conditions for exercising letters of guarantee will be discussed. In a second part, the specific circumstances in which different national courts grant injunctions in order to prevent the payment of the guarantee will be studied.

本研究中，考慮連續時間下，附最低保證之長期最適投資策略；在利率模型中，為較能符合現實狀況，我們採用CIR模型；另外，在此策略中，我們將投資人之風險偏好加入模型中研究，最適化投資人到期時財富之效用函數，並用Cox & Huang之市場中立評價方法來解決數學模型問題。此篇研究顯示，最適之投資策略可以等價於某些共同基金之投資組合，這些共同基金能利用金融市場上之主要資產(market primary assets)來複製。 / In this study, we consider a portfolio selection problem for long-term investors. Dynamic investment strategy with the continuous-time framework incorporating the minimum guarantees are constructed. Maximizing expected utility of the terminal wealth is employed by investors to trade off profits in good future state against losses incurred in worse states. Follow the previous works of Deelstra et al. (2003), we concentrate on the simplest case of a one-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) model in formulating the stochastic variation from the interest rate risks. Under the market completeness assumption, the fund growth is modelled under the market neutral valuation and the optimal rules are mapped into the static variational problem of Cox and Huang (1989). In this study, we show that the optimal portfolio is equivalent to a certain mutual fund that can be replicated by the market primary assets

<p>Tri osnovna cilja su predmet istraživanja u doktorskoj disertaciji. Prvi cilj je da se prouče mogućnosti modelovanja poslovnih informacionih sistema kori&scaron;ćenjem ontolo&scaron;kog pristupa modelovanju informacionih sistema. Drugi cilj je da se razvije model informacionog sistema državnih garancijskih fondova baziran na primeni objektnog i ontolo&scaron;kog pristupa modelovanju. Treći cilj je da se implementira prototip informacionog sistema državnih kreditno-garancijskih fondova i da se verifikuje na slučaju Grancijskog fonda APV. Metodologija: Za modelovanje sistema je kori&scaron;ćen ontolo&scaron;ki pristup primenom metodologije METHONTOLOGY, kao i alati za modeliranje i analizu ontologija (Protege). Za implementaciju prototipa je kori&scaron;ćena Microsoft .NET platforma. Rezultati istraživanja su verifikovani i testirani sa podacima iz poslovnih aktivnosti Garancijskog fonda APV.<br />Rezultati. U ovoj disertaciji su ostvareni sledeći rezultati: Na osnovu istraţivanja iz oblasti modelovanja informacionih sistema primenom ontolo&scaron;kog pristupa i identifikovanih modela funkcionisanja državnih garancijskih fondova, kreiran je konceptualni model drţavnih garancijskih fondova koji je poslužio kao osnova za razvoj ontolo&scaron;kog modela Garancijskog fonda APV. Ontolo&scaron;ki model OMGFAPV je kreiran upotrebom Methontology metodologije. OMGFAPV semantički opisuje poziciju i hijerarhiju Garancijskog fonda APV u okvirupokrajinske administracije kao i sadržaje koji su iskori&scaron;ćeni dalji za razvoj dela informacionog sistema Garancijskog fonda APV. U okviru ovih istraţivanja ostvarena su dva naučna doprinosa. Prvi doprinos je predlog metodologije transformacije semantičkih sadrţaja koji su opisani u ontolo&scaron;kom modelu u korisnički interfejs (KI) koji je standardna komponenta informacionog sistema. Drugi doprinos odnosi se na upotrebu ontolo&scaron;kih modela za modelovanje i implementaciju poslovne logike. Ova istraţivanja su obuhvatila specifičnosti podr&scaron;ke odlučivanju u procesu izdavanja garancija u državnim garancijskim fondovima. Rezultat istraţivanja je SCORE ontologija koja predstavlja zasebnu komponentu informacionog sistema Garancijskog fonda APV. Ograničenja istraživanja / implikacije: Ograničenjapredloţenog modela OMGFAPV odnose se na potrebu njegovog pro&scaron;irivanja usled specifičnih potreba, odnosno kompleksnijih operativnih procedura u procesu izdavanja garancija.Predložena metodologija transformacije semantičkih sadržaja u ontolo&scaron;kom modelu u korisnički interfejs ograničena je na kreiranje komponenti korisničkog interfejsa za unos ulaznih podataka poslovnih procedura. Osnovno ograničenjepredložene SCORE ontologije je njena stroga specijalizovanost. Predložena ontologija implementira socijalne i ekonomske karakteristike koje su od značaja za razvoj konkretnog regiona i jedan konkretan model evaluacije izdavanja garancija baziran na indeksima prioriteta. Ontologija ne sadrži generalizacije koje bi omogućile njeno direktno kori&scaron;ćenje za druge regione ili druge modele evaluacije predloga odluke i izdavanju garancija. Praktične implikacije:<br />Kreirani model informacionog sistema obezbeđuje kreiranje i praćenje podataka i dokumenata u svim fazama procesa izdavanja garancije. Pri tome je poseban naglasak na proceni kreditne sposobnosti aplikanata i distribuciji i razmeni podataka sasvimučesnicima učesnici u procesu izdavanja garancija. Sistem obezbeđuje minimalno sintaktička i koliko je moguće semantičku interoperabilnost sa eksternim učesnicima u procesu (druge finansijske institucije, organi uprave) kao i jednostavno kori&scaron;ćenje onim korisnicima (pre svega aplikanti, ali i administrativni sluţbenici) koji ne poseduju specifična stručna znanja iz oblasti rada garancijskog fonda. Originalnost/vrednost: Ontolo&scaron;kim pristupom modeliranju sistema a posebno kreiranjem ontologija kojima je predstavljeno znanje o administrativnim procesima stvaraju se pretpostavke za tehničku i organizacionu interoperabilnost različitih drţavnih organa. Pri tome, izuzetno vaţan aspekt je fleksibilan i ekonomičan mehanizam za kreiranje korisničkog interfejsa koji obezbeđuje interakciju različitih tipova korisnika (zaposleni u administraciji, zaposleni u privrednim subjektima i građanstvo) sa sistemom eUprave. Predlog modela ontolo&scaron;ki baziranog generisanja korisničkog interfejsa koji je opisan u disertaciji predstavlja ideju da se standardizuje reprezentacija korisničkog interfejsa. Generisanje i dizajn korisničkog interfejsa su svedeni na razvoj formalizovane ontologije administrativnog procesa koja uključuje opis interakcije korisnika sa sistemom putem anotacija operativnih procedura. Ontologija u kojoj su semantički predstavljene socijalne i ekonomske karakteristike koje obuhvata oblast delovanja državnih razvojnih fondova i koje su od značaja za razvoj analiziranog regiona obezbeđuje proces odlučivanja koji omogućuje dono&scaron;enje odluka o plasmanu državnih sredstava u skladu sa državnim strategijama razvoja.</p> / <p>The research in this doctoral dissertation has three main objectives. The first objective is to study the possibilities of modelling information systems by using an ontological approach. The second objective is to develop a model of information system of state guarantee funds based on the object oriented and the ontological approach to the modelling. The third goal is to implement a prototype of an information system of the state credit-guarantee funds and to verify the case of the Guarantee fund of APV. Methodology: Ontological approach is used for building a model. Methodology METHONTOLOGY was used to build the ontology, as well as tools for modelling and analysis of ontology (Protege). Microsoft .NET platform was used for the implementation of the prototype. The research results are verified and tested with data from operating activities of the Guarantee Fund APV.<br />Results. In this dissertation, the following results were achieved: Based on the research in the field of modelling of information systems using the ontological approach and identified models of the state guarantee funds, the author created a conceptual model of state guarantee funds, which served as the basis for the development of the ontological model of the Guarantee Fund APV. The ontological model OMGFAPV was created using Methontology methodology. OMGFAPV semantically describes the position and hierarchy of the Guarantee Fund of APV within the provincial administration and the contents of which are used for the further development of part of an information system for the Guarantee Fund of APV. Two scientific contributions were realized within these studies. The first contribution is the proposed methodology of transformation of the semantic contents that are described in the ontological model in the user interface component of the information system. The second contribution is the use of ontological models for modelling and implementing business logic. These studies included the specifics of the decision support in the process<br />KEYWORD DOCUMENTATION<br />252<br />of issuing guarantees in the state guaranty funds. The result of this research is a SCORE ontology that represents a separate component of the information system of the Guarantee Fund APV. Research Limitations / Implications: The limitations of the proposed model OMGFAPV refer to the need of expanding due to its specific needs, or more complex operating procedures in the process of issuing the guarantees. The proposed methodology for transformation of semantic content of the ontological model in the user interface is limited to the creation of components of the user interface for entering input data of the business procedures. The key limitation of the proposed SCORE ontology is its strict specialization. The proposed ontology implements social and economic characteristics that are important for the development of a region. The ontology does not contain generalizations that would allow its direct use in other regions or other models of decision proposal in the process of issuing guarantees. Practical implications: The created model of information systems provides the design and monitoring of data and documents in all stages of the process of issuing the guarantee. It is a special emphasis on assessing creditworthiness of applicants and the distribution and exchange of information with all stakeholders, participants in the process of issuing the guarantee. The system provides minimal syntactic and semantic interoperability with external stakeholders (other financial institutions, administrative authorities) as well as ease of use to the users (primarily applicants, and administrative officials) who do not possess specific expertise in the field of labor guarantee fund . Originality / value:<br />The ontological approach to modelling systems, particularly by creating an ontology which is represented by knowledge of administrative processes creates the prerequisites for technical and organizational interoperability of the various government bodies. In addition, an extremely important aspect is a flexible and cost-effective mechanism for creating a user interface that provides interaction of different types of users (employees of the administration, employees of companies and citizens) with a system of eGovernment. The proposal of the ontological model-based generation of user interface that is described in this dissertation presents the idea to standardize the representation of the user interface. Generating and designing of the user interface is reduced to the development of formalized ontology of the administrative process, which includes a description of user interaction with the system via operating procedures annotations. The ontology in which social and economic characteristics are semantically represented, which covers the area of operation of state development funds and which is of importance for the development of the analyzed region provides the decision-making process for making decisions about the placement of state funds in accordance with national development strategies.</p>

Marketing practices like Money-Back Guarantees (MBGs) and warranties are quite controversial in the health care market. Despite their professed intention to improve consumer welfare, MBGs are often decried for taking advantage of consumers who might not have the correct information. This concern is valid especially given the salient features of health care markets: a) customization, b) expert service, and c) difficulty in measuring service quality. For instance, in the context of in-vitro fertilization (IVF)-a medical procedure to assist infertile couples in having children-many health care and policy experts argue that MBGs offered by fertility clinics are nothing but marketing gimmicks and that these clinics either sort and treat only the more fertile patients or overtreat patients with more aggressive and risky treatment protocols. This concern, however, is in stark contrast with the signaling literature in marketing and economics. The central idea of the signaling theory is that the cost of offering MBGs can be so high that low-quality clinics are not able to afford mimicking the high-quality clinics' offering of MBGs. Essentially then, only high-quality clinics would be able to afford MBGs. Given these contrasting viewpoints, my dissertation aims to advance our understanding of the strategic MBG decisions in the health care market. Utilizing data from the U.S. IVF market, I investigate the relationship between MBGs and clinic capability, which contains two aspects: a) service quality, i.e., the effectiveness in transforming input to treatment outcome (or quality output), and b) service productivity, i.e., the efficiency in transforming input to production possibility (or quantity output). Considering the nature of the IVF market, my findings have natural extension to other health care and expert service markets. In chapter 2 (essay one), I empirically examine the underlying mechanism of MBGs-whether MBGs in the IVF market can act as credible signals of quality or simply marketing gimmicks-by investigating the relationship between MBG offers and treatment outcomes at the clinic level. The analysis is conducted on a large and unique longitudinal dataset that includes a) clinic-level treatment and outcome statistics for almost all IVF clinics in the U.S., b) fertility clinic characteristics and MBG decisions, c) information on state-level insurance mandates, and d) demographic characteristics. Using an instrument variable approach to account for the endogeneity of MBG decisions made by fertility clinics, I find that compared to clinics not offering MBGs, clinics offering MBGs secure better treatment outcomes (i.e., higher live birth rate) and use less aggressive treatment (i.e., transferring fewer embryos) without sorting higher fertility patients or imposing higher long-term risk (i.e., multiple birth rate). These results taken together suggest that MBGs can work as signals of quality despite the incentives for clinics to engage in opportunistic behaviors.In chapter 3 (essay two), I empirically examine the relationship between MBG decisions and clinic productivity. To quantify the unobserved productivity, I first incorporate the quantity-quality tradeoff into the production function and then estimate it using a non-parametric structural model approach recently developed in the economics literature. Empirically, to handle the endogeneity challenge caused by unobserved productivity, I use input change decision (i.e., hiring and investment) as a proxy for productivity. Then, I use an instrument variable approach to deal with the attenuation bias caused by measurement error in quality output. The results show that a) the quantity-quality tradeoff exists in the IVF market, b) expert labor plays a more important role than capital in determining the production quantity, and c) clinics with higher productivity are more likely to be offering MBGs, being non-profit, with longer experience, providing service to single woman, with higher competition, and in states with IVF insurance mandates. Compared to non-MBG clinics, MBG clinics have higher capability because they are not only more effective in transforming resource to successful outcome, but also more efficient in transforming capital and labor to production capacity. Shedding light on the public policy debate over MBG practice in the IVF industry, my study indicates that traditional marketing strategies deserve nuanced analysis in the health care and expert service markets.

- Bank guaranty The thesis deals with the topic of bank guarantee and its legal regulation in the Czech legal system. The purpose of this thesis is to provide comprehensive characteristics of bank guarantee, both from theoretical and practical point of view. The thesis can be divided into tweleve chapters. The first chapter is the introduction a and the last chapters contains conclusion. Second chapter is focused on nature and function of securing instruments and their legal regulation in respective legislation. Third chapter compares bank guarantee with ordinary guarantee. Then includes historical development of bank guarantee and regulation of the instrument in the Commercial Code, in legislation of public law and in Uniform rules issued by International Chamber of Commerce. Fourth chapter is the focal point of the thesis. It explains relations between subjects participating in bank guarantee. These subjects are principal, benefictiary and bank. The fourth chapter also analyzes objections of bank, assignment of the rights from bank guarantee and guarantee charge. Lastly, it contains description of secured obligation and abuse of right to demand performance with its possible consequences in criminal law. Fifth chapter focuses on letter of guarantee and its content. Then it thoroughly analyzes...

<p>The dissertation consists of three chapters related to the low-price guarantee marketing strategy and energy efficiency analysis. The low-price guarantee is a marketing strategy in which firms promise to charge consumers the lowest price among their competitors. Chapter 1 addresses the research question "Does a Low-Price Guarantee Induce Lower Prices'' by looking into the retail gasoline industry in Quebec where there was a major branded firm which started a low-price guarantee back in 1996. Chapter 2 does a consumer welfare analysis of low-price guarantees to drive police indications and offers a new explanation of the firms' incentives to adopt a low-price guarantee. Chapter 3 develops the energy performance indicators (EPIs) to measure energy efficiency of the manufacturing plants in pulp, paper and paperboard industry.</p><p>Chapter 1 revisits the traditional view that a low-price guarantee results in higher prices by facilitating collusion. Using accurate market definitions and station-level data from the retail gasoline industry in Quebec, I conducted a descriptive analysis based on stations and price zones to compare the price and sales movement before and after the guarantee was adopted. I find that, contrary to the traditional view, the stores that offered the guarantee significantly decreased their prices and increased their sales. I also build a difference-in-difference model to quantify the decrease in posted price of the stores that offered the guarantee to be 0.7 cents per liter. While this change is significant, I do not find the response in comeptitors' prices to be significant. The sales of the stores that offered the guarantee increased significantly while the competitors' sales decreased significantly. However, the significance vanishes if I use the station clustered standard errors. Comparing my observations and the predictions of different theories of modeling low-price guarantees, I conclude the empirical evidence here supports that the low-price guarantee is a simple commitment device and induces lower prices. </p><p>Chapter 2 conducts a consumer welfare analysis of low-price guarantees to address the antitrust concerns and potential regulations from the government; explains the firms' potential incentives to adopt a low-price guarantee. Using station-level data from the retail gasoline industry in Quebec, I estimated consumers' demand of gasoline by a structural model with spatial competition incorporating the low-price guarantee as a commitment device, which allows firms to pre-commit to charge the lowest price among their competitors. The counterfactual analysis under the Bertrand competition setting shows that the stores that offered the guarantee attracted a lot more consumers and decreased their posted price by 0.6 cents per liter. Although the matching stores suffered a decrease in profits from gasoline sales, they are incentivized to adopt the low-price guarantee to attract more consumers to visit the store likely increasing profits at attached convenience stores. Firms have strong incentives to adopt a low-price guarantee on the product that their consumers are most price-sensitive about, while earning a profit from the products that are not covered in the guarantee. I estimate that consumers earn about 0.3% more surplus when the low-price guarantee is in place, which suggests that the authorities should not be concerned and regulate low-price guarantees. In Appendix B, I also propose an empirical model to look into how low-price guarantees would change consumer search behavior and whether consumer search plays an important role in estimating consumer surplus accurately.</p><p>Chapter 3, joint with Gale Boyd, describes work with the pulp, paper, and paperboard (PP&PB) industry to provide a plant-level indicator of energy efficiency for facilities that produce various types of paper products in the United States. Organizations that implement strategic energy management programs undertake a set of activities that, if carried out properly, have the potential to deliver sustained energy savings. Energy performance benchmarking is a key activity of strategic energy management and one way to enable companies to set energy efficiency targets for manufacturing facilities. The opportunity to assess plant energy performance through a comparison with similar plants in its industry is a highly desirable and strategic method of benchmarking for industrial energy managers. However, access to energy performance data for conducting industry benchmarking is usually unavailable to most industrial energy managers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through its ENERGY STAR program, seeks to overcome this barrier through the development of manufacturing sector-based plant energy performance indicators (EPIs) that encourage U.S. industries to use energy more efficiently. In the development of the energy performance indicator tools, consideration is given to the role that performance-based indicators play in motivating change; the steps necessary for indicator development, from interacting with an industry in securing adequate data for the indicator; and actual application and use of an indicator when complete. How indicators are employed in EPA’s efforts to encourage industries to voluntarily improve their use of energy is discussed as well. The chapter describes the data and statistical methods used to construct the EPI for plants within selected segments of the pulp, paper, and paperboard industry: specifically pulp mills and integrated paper & paperboard mills. The individual equations are presented, as are the instructions for using those equations as implemented in an associated Microsoft Excel-based spreadsheet tool.</p> / Dissertation

La ''caution dirigeante'' est une formule consacrée par la doctrine pour désigner le cautionnement donné par un dirigeant en garantie des dettes de sa société. L'emploi de ce syntagme n'est pas inutile dans la mesure où la caution dirigeante a toujours eu un statut intermédiaire : elle ne peut pas être appréhendée comme un simple consommateur puisqu'elle contracte pour les besoins de son activité professionnelle, elle ne peut pas davantage être considérée comme un professionnel contractant dans son domaine de compétences. Traditionnellement, la jurisprudence considérait pourtant les cautions dirigeantes comme des cautions averties, elles en incarnaient précisément l'archétype. Dès la fin des années 1970, des réformes législatives compliquèrent régulièrement cette conception prétorienne de la caution dirigeante. La loi pour l'initiative économique du 1er août 2003 annonça l'avènement d'une ère nouvelle pour les cautions dirigeantes, faisant d'elles des quidam du droit du cautionnement. Les interventions législatives ultérieures forcent même à constater que les dirigeants sont paradoxalement mieux protégés que les cautions non-dirigeantes, fragilisant ainsi la fonction de ce cautionnement qui est d'assurer le crédit aux entreprises. / "Director's Guarantee" is an expression reserved by doctrine to refer to the surety given by a director to secure the debts of his company. The employment of this phrase is useful insofar as the director's guarantee has always had an intermediary status : he cannot be considered to be either as simple consumer because he's contracted for the purposes of the director's professional activity, nor as a professional contracting in his or her field. Traditionally, case law has considered director's guarantees as informed sureties. In fact, they embody the archetype. Since the 1970's, legislative reforms have regularly complicated this court-made definition of the director's guarantee. The French Economic Initiative Act of 1 August 2003 launched a new era for director's guarantees, making them ordinary individuals of surety law. Later legislative actions even had to note that director's guarantees are paradoxically better protected than non-director's guarantees, thereby weakening the function of this surety that is to provide business credit.

The aim of this thesis is to compare DGS European Union member states before the unification of law and analyze the current situation and developments in this area in the European Union with a more detailed focus on the Czech Republic. Another objective is to evaluate the significance of the Deposit Insurance Fund in the Czech Republic and its ability to meet its obligations. At first are given the fundamental characteristics of the elements of context and parameters of deposit insurance. Then it is made a legal analysis of important directives on deposit insurance, which determine the current situation and developments in this area in the European Union. On the basis of events caused by the financial crisis, a single fixed level of insurance coverage had been introduced in the European Union. The thesis contains a comparison of deposit insurance systems of the Member States prior to the unification of this law. Attention is paid to deposit insurance in the Czech Republic. A determined importance of the Deposit Insurance Fund and the characteristics of its activity are also described. Finally, the thesis contains an example describing the Deposit Insurance Fund meeting its commitments to Volksbank CZ, illustrated by the situation where this bank is unable to meet its obligations to beneficiaries.