4.  The applicants were minority shareholders of YTONG, a.s., a joint stock company incorporated under Czech law. 5.  On 24 June 2003 the general meeting of that company adopted, by votes of the main shareholder, a resolution on the winding up of the company and the transfer of all its assets to the main shareholder. 6.  On 25 June 2003 the applicants lodged with the Brno Regional Court (krajský soud) an action to have the resolution set aside, asserting that it had been adopted contrary to the applicable law, bilateral investment treaties and their property rights. Asserting the unlawfulness of the asset transfer contract on account of its clause reserving for arbitration jurisdiction over disputes concerning the value of the compensation, they further emphasised a number of irregularities of the resolution. They informed the court administering the commercial register about the action. 7.  On 11 July 2003 the court in charge of the commercial register approved the registration of the transfer. No hearing was held before that decision, which was not served on the applicants as they did not have standing to participate in the proceedings. Based on this decision the company YTONG, a.s. was deleted from the commercial register on 1 September 2003. 8.  On 11 December 2003 the Olomouc High Court (vrchní soud) dismissed the first and second applicants’ appeal contesting that decision. It ruled that since the applicants did not have standing to take part in the impugned proceedings, they were not entitled to appeal their outcome. 9.  On 6 January 2005 the Regional Court rejected the applicants’ claim to set aside the resolution. The applicants appealed. 10.  On 28 November 2005 the High Court, relying on Article 220h § 4 of the Commercial Code, discontinued the set-aside proceedings without examining the merits. 11.  On 24 June 2008 the Supreme Court (Nejvyšší soud) dismissed the applicants’ appeal on points of law holding that the decision to discontinue the proceedings had not been a decision on the merits and thus an appeal on points of law was not admissible. 12.  On 11 December 2008 the Constitutional Court (Ústavní soud) dismissed the applicants’ constitutional appeal, in which they claimed an impairment of their right to a fair trial in the set-aside proceedings by reason of the limitation on access to a court brought about by Article 220h § 4 of the Commercial Code. The Constitutional Court found that the Supreme Court had not erred in its impugned decision of 24 June 2008 and this part of the appeal was thus manifestly ill-founded. Since the appeal on points of law was not admissible in the applicants’ case, the court held that it was not an effective remedy to be exhausted and consequently their constitutional appeal against the decisions of the Regional and High Courts had been lodged out of time.