Top court instructs GVH to conduct new procedure over alleged FX early repayment bank cartel

Budapest (MTI) – Hungary’s supreme court, the Kúria, on Tuesday instructed competition office GVH to conduct a new procedure over fines it had levied on banks over suspected cartel activity during an early payback scheme for borrowers with foreign currency-denominated loans in 2011-2012.

The ruling concerns GVH’s resolution issued in 2013 imposing fines of a combined 9.488 billion forints (EUR 30.2m) on eleven banks.

In its decision, the Kúria upheld the part of its earlier ruling declaring that the lenders had colluded to reduce the scale of participation in the scheme.

In the new procedure, GVH will have to re-examine the circumstances and the criteria based on which the fines were levied, the legal representatives of the plaintiff banks told MTI after the ruling was announced.

This also means that GVH will have to repay the fines that the banks have already paid to the competition office, they added.

Source: MTI