Governing under martial law, commercially

Martial law is often assumed by outsiders to mean that ordinary commercial life is suspended. It does not. What it does is alter a specific set of rules, and knowing which ones matters.

Labour

Employment rules were adjusted to allow flexibility that ordinary labour law does not: suspension of employment where an employee cannot be reached or the workplace cannot operate, simplified working time arrangements, and different notice conditions.

Mobilisation affects staffing directly, and employers have obligations regarding mobilised employees which cannot be contracted around.

Contracts and force majeure

The chamber of commerce issues force majeure certificates, and there has been a common misunderstanding: a certificate confirms that circumstances existed, not that your particular obligation became impossible. A party still has to show the connection between the circumstance and the failure to perform.

Contracts written after February 2022 that treat the war as unforeseeable are drafted badly.

Currency and payments

Controls on cross-border payments, with categories of permitted transaction that have been relaxed progressively. Anyone planning to repatriate profit should establish the current position rather than the position they were told about a year ago.

Movement and permits

Travel restrictions for certain categories of person, curfew hours affecting logistics, and permits for movement in certain regions.

The practical point

Commercial life continues, courts function, registries operate and contracts are enforced. The mistake foreign counterparties make is assuming either that nothing has changed or that everything has. Both are wrong and the second costs more, because it stops firms from doing business that is entirely possible.

I have lived this list end to end as a company owner, and let me name the part people get most wrong: force majeure does not protect as widely as they assume. What your own contract says comes before what the law says. The second common error is on the mobilisation side — if you have not built your staffing plan around it, one morning you start without your key person.