These issues are investigated by the consumer protection authority in the shops

By: Trademagazin Date: 2023. 04. 14. 11:58

In order to enforce price control regulations, the government’s consumer protection authority has been very active this year, inspecting stores nearly 2,400 times and imposing fines of several hundred million forints. The stores had to pay 563.65 million forints in fines this year alone, with the average penalty being 1.5-2 million forints.

The violations mainly resulted from failure to comply with inventory and distribution obligations, violation of official pricing regulations, inadequate or incomplete information about official products, missing price listings, or misleading information, as we learned from a Portfolio article.

The affected stores were those where consumers most frequently purchase official products. The government plans to create an online price monitoring database to increase comparability of consumer prices, which could have a long-term moderating effect on prices.

The government frequently emphasizes that stores are partly responsible for the record inflation at the European level, as they raise their prices more than their procurement costs increase.