The economic situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for regulations that protect jobs and can respond effectively to the challenges of the economic environment and the labor market of this unprecedented time. It is essential for labor market actors to maintain and promote jobs that provide legal employment and to create such jobs as widely as possible, therefore, the Hungarian Government issued a bill about employment services, subsidies and employment supervision to the Parliament for legislation.

The Budapest office of Schoenherr has advised Doosan on its EUR 210 million investment in its copper foil production base in Tatabanya, Hungary, for the construction of another factory on the location. 

Kinstellar has advised GTT Communications on the USD 2.15 billion sale of its business infrastructure in Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe to I Squared Capital. Linklaters advised the buyer on the deal.

Varga Mihály, Minister of Finance submitted the autumn tax changes package to the Hungarian Parliament, including the proposed changes for VAT in 2021. The draft contains detailed implementing rules for the EU e-commerce package and related administrative requirements, as well as several additional changes to the Hungarian VAT Act, as follows:

Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important, especially in the automotive industry, which is reinventing itself. Connected cars, autonomous systems, electric cars and personal mobility systems all rely heavily on software. Today’s car has about 300 million lines of software code (compared to an average PC operating system’s 40 million) which makes it vulnerable to various cyberattacks. No unified regulatory framework or even technical standards currently exist.

The European Court of Justice has just put an end to an uncertainty that has weighed heavily on the pockets of property developers for years. Not only did it confirm that the VAT on what are known as “public purpose” investments can be deducted, but also that the obligatory transfer of ownership of such investments does not give rise to a VAT liability even if the investment is essential for the developer’s own economic activity.

SBGK’s busiest practice over the last few months has been Data Protection, according to Partner Andras Gyorgy, driven by both the COVID-19 pandemic and, more importantly, by fines for GDPR breaches raising awareness among companies.

During the state of emergency in the spring Gov. Decree no. 227/2020 (“Gov. Decree”) was introduced to require the notification to the Minister of Innovation and Technology (“Minister”) and the acknowledgment by the Minister as a condition to certain foreign investments in Hungarian-based companies. Following the end of the state of emergency subchapter 85 of Act LVIII of 2020 (“Vmtv.”) prescribes the rules applicable to foreign investments which are mostly similar to the rules established by the Gov. Decree.  However, in some matters the Vmtv. prescribes different rules. Now, certain provisions of the Vmtv. have been amended and supplemented by Act CIV of 2020 and the amendments have entered into force on 30 October, 2020.

Lakatos Koves & Partners has advised Innobyte on the sale of a majority stake in the company and its Innoware subsidiary to IT company 4iG. Following the approval of the Hungarian Competition Office, the transaction closed in October. Kertesz and Partners reportedly advised 4iG on the deal.

As of 1 September 2020, Hungary closed its borders to non-Hungarian citizens again. The rules abolished the tricolour system of green, yellow and red countries qualifying literally all countries as red. The rules introduced then – by a recent legislative amendment – remain in force until 1 December 2020.

Handover of pubic investment – creating access roads, utilities, etc. – to the local municipality or to the state for free is required in many cases by law in Hungary. According to the current interpretation of the tax authority and courts in Hungary, such handover triggers VAT payment obligation for the real estate investor (given that VAT was previously deducted in this regard). Since – in most cases – the real estate investor is unable to charge the VAT to the municipality or the state respectively, VAT was practically its loss in such cases.

Some experts say that “data is the new oil,” but oil can catch fire easily without proper handling. When you hear concerns about the collection of personal data, you might first associate them with data protection regulations, but competition law can also seriously affect your business. Competition authorities have intervened recently against platforms by using patterns that might be widely applied to other companies. Is this just the beginning? Who is in danger?

According to its website, Budapest-based InvestCEE aims to “humanize technology” for lawyers and provides services to law firms and in-house counsel in Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

In order to prevent and restrain the spreading of the new Coronavirus pandemic (“COVID-19”), after the virus appeared in Europe, plenty of employers and other institutions has started to apply instruments suitable for the measurement of the body temperature.

White & Case and Lakatos Koves and Partners have advised Mid Europa Partners on the sale of 24% of the issued share capital of Waberer's International Nyrt to Trevelin Holding Zrt, the Hungarian-based member of Indotek Group. Deloitte Legal reportedly advised Trevelin Holding on the deal.

Due to the extended economic effects of the coronavirus epidemic, the October tax package announced by the Hungarian Government was aimed to stimulate the investing climate. According to the Hungarian ‘economic protection operational body’, there are three different ways to revive the economy (i.e.: tax reduction, simplification of the administration, boosting investments).

The Hungarian Competition Authority (HCA) has initiated an investigation against TikTok, the popular social media platform. TikTok's capacity to generate vast amounts of consumer data and shower its users with ads has already sounded several alarm bells as regulators attempt to make sense of the phenomena that is digitalisation. The HCA took the initiative to scrutinise the platform with a focus on consumer protection.

At the beginning of October 2020, the prime minister has announced that the Hungarian Government continues the family protection measures and for this purpose, the VAT tax rate of new flats will be again 5% instead of the general VAT rate of 27% in case of constructions commenced until 31 December 2022.