Practice areas
Competition and consumer protection
We defend in competition and consumer protection proceedings, and we work on the preventive side: building compliance programmes, reviewing commercial communication and pricing, and notifying mergers. The two sides are the same expertise applied at different moments.
- Representation in competition supervision proceedings before the Hungarian Competition Authority
- Cases concerning unfair commercial practices and misleading advertising
- Cartel and abuse of dominance matters, regulatory complaints and private enforcement
- Merger notifications and clearance procedures at Hungarian and EU level
- Designing competition compliance programmes, internal training and regular refreshers
- Consumer protection authority proceedings and conciliation board cases
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Representative matters
Representation of a client in competition proceedings in the electronic communications sector concerning unfair commercial practices towards consumers and business partners.
Representation of Hungarian and Central European airlines in competition proceedings concerning unfair market conduct.
Representation of a European food-supplement manufacturer in competition proceedings concerning unfair market conduct.
Regulatory complaint and private enforcement action for a client in the telecommunications industry against a competitor's abuse of a dominant position.
Legal advice and representation for a Hungarian IT company in cartel proceedings.
Designing a competition compliance programme for an international financial institution, and running regular training to maintain compliance.
Notifying a merger to the Hungarian Competition Authority and representing a client in the heavy-industry sector, and advising a Hungarian energy company on a Community-scale merger.
Monitoring competitors' market conduct and, where necessary, filing complaints with the competition authority.
Ongoing advice to multinational companies on preventing anti-competitive agreements and unfair commercial practices towards consumers.
Questions clients ask us
When does an acquisition have to be notified to the Hungarian Competition Authority?
If the combined Hungarian turnover of the undertakings concerned and the turnover of the individual parties reach the statutory thresholds, the transaction needs clearance and may not be implemented before notification. The thresholds are calculated on the whole group, not on the acquiring entity alone. That is the easiest thing to get wrong.
What counts as a misleading advertising claim?
Anything the business cannot substantiate in the sense in which the consumer understands it. It is not enough that the claim is technically true: the evidence has to exist before the communication goes out, and the authority looks at the overall impression: image, emphasis and small print together, not just the sentence.