Hungary’s Competition Office GVH levies more than EUR 9.72m of fines in 2024

Hungary’s Competition Office (GVH) has levied more than HUF 4bn of fines in 2024, the watchdog’s head, Csaba Balázs Rigó, said in an interview with daily Magyar Nemzet.

Rigo said fines had been reduced by a combined HUF 2.5bn for companies that had cooperated with GVH, acknowledging violations and waiving their right to legal recourse. He highlighted a HUF 1.2bn fine for cartel activity involving a public procurement contract for railway developments around Debrecen (E Hungary):

Hungary’s Competition Office (GVH) has fined two units of the Homlok group HUF 1.2bn for colluding in a public procurement worth tens of billions of forints called for a railway development project near Debrecen. GVH said the two companies tried to obstruct the competition authority’s procedure and therefore they also have to pay an additional procedural fine of HUF 25m. Another company involved in the case, Inter Mobility, cooperated with GVH during the procedure. It submitted a leniency application, which GVH’s Competition Council accepted, participated in a settlement procedure and undertook to introduce a compliance programme. GVH therefore reduced the fine that could be imposed on the company to HUF 30m.

Many assume that the GVH started investigating the cartel allegation when the owner of the recently fined Homlok group broke up with the daughter of Lőrinc Mészáros, suggesting that the Competition Authority did not just “strike” on political grounds, but on family grounds. Rigó rejected this accusation.

Rigó said a probe of Spar Magyarország to determine if the supermarket chain had fulfilled earlier commitments could wind up in H1 2025. Related article – Head of the Competition Authority: CJEU ‘humiliates’ Hungarians with Spar ruling. He added that probes of online marketplace Temu and software company Microsoft were also ongoing.

Rigó said urgent measures were needed to address the big competitive advantage tech giants enjoy in the area of artificial intelligence.

He said an online platform for comparing food prices at Hungary’s biggest supermarket chains had saved shoppers around HUF 20bn (EUR 48,60m) during three months and would continue to operate in 2025.