Budapest, 08 April 2022 - In its ruling announced orally, the Budapest-Capital Regional Court did not grant Miklós Hajnal’s claim and did not order any competition supervision proceedings in the lawsuit initiated by the Representative of the Hegyvidék Municipality against a decision of the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH).
A ruling proclaimed only orally yet has been made in the administrative lawsuit initiated by Miklós Hajnal against the Hungarian Competition Authority in response to a decision made by the GVH after investigating his notification to the effect that no competition supervision proceedings are required concerning the representative’s complaint. The complaint described presumed competition problems in connection with some construction tenders, but the GVH – despite a thorough investigation of the contents of the complaint – did not consider it justified to launch competition supervision proceedings against the construction undertakings concerned.
All signals from consumers are important to the GVH, which are investigated by it according to the same legal criteria in all cases. If those notifying it do not agree with the Authority’s decision, they may – thanks to rule of law guarantees operated in our country – turn to court under the provisions of the Hungarian Competition Act.
Thus, after his complaint has been closed, Hajnal Miklós, the complainant resorted to court, an option open to everyone in such cases, and filed a lawsuit against the GVH’s decision, asking the Budapest-Capital Regional Court to order the Authority to conduct competition supervision proceedings. After hearing the parties and examining their positions, the Court did not uphold the contents of the claim and did not obligate the GVH to conduct competition supervision proceedings. Without qualifying the merits of the complaint, the Court merely asked for a further supplement to the reasons for the decision of the Hungarian Competition Authority. However, that fact does not mean in any way that the Court would have ordered the GVH to launch an investigation of a specific competition problem following the complaint.
The exact content of the provisions resulting from the Court’s decision will be made known to the parties after the Court’s decision has been put to writing and received by the parties, and then the Hungarian Competition Authority will be available to both the public and the complainant for an unbiased interpretation of the decision.
GVH Press Office