(Copyright National Post 2007)

A crucial member of the Bata family has won a court victory that overturns a decades-old ruling that he was a Nazi sympathizer in the Czech Republic.

Yesterday a Prague court lifted a Communist-era verdict against Jan Antonin Bata, the late uncle of shoemaking icon Thomas Bata.

In 1947, Jan Antonin Bata was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison for not demonstrating sufficient support for the Allies during the Second World War.

"The Bata family is pleased that this outcome removes what was clearly an unjustified cloud over the Bata family name," read a statement issued to the National Post by Thomas Bata.

Though the 60-year-old decision was reversed, it's up to a state prosecutor to reopen the case, which in effect could clear the name of Jan Antonin Bata, who is credited with making the company an international force in the years before the Second World War.

At the recent trial, Bata family lawyers presented evidence that Jan Antonin Bata, who fled the Nazi occupation in 1939, helped finance the exiled government, which was led by Edvard Benes. "Altogether around a quarter of a million dollars was paid," a family lawyer told Agence France-Presse, adding that the family could not overtly support the opposition because it could impact the Czech branch of the multinational continued under the Germans.

Jan Antonin Bata had expanded the business founded by his half- brother, Tomas Bata, who died in a plane crash in 1932. Students of U.S. mass-manufacturing techniques, the Batas built their fortune by making cheap, durable shoes.

Centred in the modernist town of Zlin, its progressive treatment of workers and successful business story made it a touchstone of national pride

When the Nazis occupied the country in 1939, Mr. Bata eventually settled in Brazil, and his nephew, Thomas, also working in the company, landed in Canada.

But according to the Communists who controlled the courts at the time -- and eventually the country in 1948 -- the alleged refusal of the elder Bata to join the anti-German resistance was an act of treason.

"Initially there were 10 to 12 crimes, but they couldn't find enough evidence," said Josef Cermak, a retired lawyer and author of It All Began With Prince Rupert: A History of Czechs and Slovaks in Canada. "They couldn't find a judge to try him."

When the Nazis fell, Communism was fanning across Eastern Europe and new governments were confiscating factories and private property.

After his own factories and lands were seized, Jan Antonin Bata was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour.

In exile, he continued to expand the family empire. A complicated wrangling over the estate eventually left the younger Bata in control of the family empire in 1962. The elder Bata died in 1965.

During Thomas's three decades of direction, the company became one of the largest shoe manufacturers in the world.

In 1994, the Bata family made their first unsuccessful attempt to clear their patriarch's name, but it wasn't until a public effort and a major push by his 92-year-old nephew that the effort succeeded thus far.