Importers’ pricing practices in the focus of the GVH

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 12. 16. 11:25

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The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) and the Hungarian National Bank (MNB) are jointly investigating how the significant strengthening of the forint experienced in recent months is reflected in Hungarian consumer prices, especially in the case of imported products and food. The GVH is considering the application of the tools included in its competition law toolbox, so in justified cases it may launch an accelerated sector investigation in order to assess the sectoral problems in a competition-focused manner, or even initiate competition supervision proceedings against affected market participants.

In order to evaluate and deepen the professional cooperation between the Economic Competition Authority and the Hungarian National Bank, MNB President Mihály Varga and GVH President Csaba Balázs Rigó met on 8 December 2025, at the central bank’s headquarters in Szabadság tér.

The At the meeting, Csaba Balázs Rigó highlighted:

“The national competition authority is committed to supporting economic processes that strengthen growth within its scope of tasks defined in the legislation. In order to curb inflation, the GVH has already intervened at several points. Cooperation with the MNB strengthens us in taking decisive action against those market players who fuel inflationary processes with their behavior that violates the competition law.”

Related to the latter, the central topic of the discussion was that the forint has strengthened significantly against both the euro and the dollar in recent times. The parties agreed that it is an obvious economic and social goal that, as a result of the strengthening of the forint, as a positive effect, traders should reduce the consumer price of imported products and “reprice” products purchased in foreign currency.

The national competition authority has recently begun mapping the pricing practices of importers. The main question is how and how quickly traders apply the exchange rate change to consumer prices in the event of a strengthening of the forint. The GVH aims to reveal the competition law reasons behind pricing anomalies with its investigations and – in the event of suspicion of competition-distorting or competition-restricting behavior – to intervene decisively in market processes. This may take the form of a market analysis, an accelerated sector investigation, or a competition supervision procedure that also provides for the possibility of sanctions.

The GVH hereby draws the attention of the relevant market participants and sectoral professional organizations to the full compliance with the relevant competition law provisions.

For the investigations, the national competition authority also uses historical data from the online Price Monitor it operates. On www.arfigyelo.hu, the daily changing prices of more than 5,000 food and household products in 140 product categories can be tracked in a total of 1,799 stores of six national retail chains and three national drugstore chains.