Modifications in the competition law

Hungary’s Competition Act (Act 57 of 1996) is being amended in order to enforce competition law requirements with greater efficiency by improving the Hungarian Competition Authority’s (GVH) procedures and to make SMEs better comply with the legislation. In its new version the law states that the first time SMEs don’t comply with it, it is possible to warn them only instead of imposing a fine. Amendments also aim at making it easier for the authorities to act in the case of breaking the competition law in public procurement procedures. As for the agricultural sector, the new sections also wish to control the merger of enterprises better, for instance by making the process more transparent. The Act on Interprofessional Organisations (Act 128 of 2012) introduced rules for competition supervision procedures – now some of these have been made more concrete. GVH’s work can be made faster and more efficient by the new, modified version of the competition law: it guarantees that giving access to protected data leads to no harm in the rights of those authorised.