Bird & Bird has advised Hungary’s OTP Bank Group on its acquisition of the Albanian subsidiary of Greek Alpha Bank for EUR 55 million. White & Case advised Alpha Services and Holdings. Boga & Associates reportedly advised OTP as well. Kalo & Associates reportedly also advised Alpha.

Government Decree No. 230/2022 passed on 28 June 2022 introduced a new regime which enables the Hungarian Government to place certain entities under the supervision of the Hungarian State. Such entities shall have a significant or dominant position in the energy industry, in particular in the following sectors having strategic and national security importance: (i) electricity, (ii) natural gas, (iii) crude oil, (iv) district heating and (v) mining. The legislation expressly mentions two entities, i.e. FGSZ Natural Gas Transmission Private Company Limited by Shares and the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Stockpiling Association.

Due to the armed conflict and humanitarian disaster in Ukraine and in order to avert the consequences of such conflict in Hungary, the Government has adopted a decree that entered into force on 29 June 2022, on the basis of which, in order to safeguard the public interest of continuity and security of supply, the Government may place under the supervision of the Hungarian State the operators with significant or dominant market power in the energy industry, in particular in electricity, natural gas, petroleum, district heating and mining industry, including e.g. FGSZ Foldgazszallito Zrt. and the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Stockholders Association.

EU businesses are free to cross borders and relocate their headquarters to another Member State. The amended EU directive and the corresponding new Hungarian rules aim to help companies doing so. In order to make it easier for companies to establish themselves in another Member State and to make cross-border operations more attractive, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, the European Union decided back in 2019 to amend the EU directive on cross-border mergers, divisions and mergers.

The amendments to the execution government decree of the Land Registry Act entered into force on 1 May 2022, which introduced a new definition of parking space. A parking space is an area serving for the placement of a motor vehicle created in the motor vehicle storage room of a building, one side of which is connected to the access road to the parking spaces and the other three sides of which are delimited by a permanent physical marking or wall on the floor of the room. The definition also specifies the size of the parking space. This is important, since as a result, a parking space in a car storage room of a condominium may be registered as an independent property in the land registry. This only requires a proof of existence of a car storage room in the building.

Cerha Hempel Head of Competition Marton Kocsis has been promoted to Partner with the firm's Budapest office.

In Hungary the Government recently issued a decree introducing extra profit taxes affecting several sectors, among others the aviation sector. Pursuant to the Governmental decree, as of 1 July 2022 an extra profittax is payable by ground handling companies based on the number of passengers departing from Hungary, with the exception of transit passengers. The new special tax is HUF 3,900 (approx. EUR 10) or HUF 9,750 (approx. EUR 25) per passenger depending on the passenger's final destination.

Dentons has advised Raiffeisen Bank on a USD 200 million five-year syndicated green loan facility for Volta Energy Solutions Hungary. Kinstellar advised the borrower.

Queritius and Wolf Theiss, working with Dechert, have successfully represented the interests of the Mol Group in a USD 230 million ICSID arbitration case against the Republic of Croatia. Reportedly, Weil Gotshal & Manges, Peters & Peters, and Brick Court Chambers also represented Mol.

The term "whistleblowing" means a procedure for reporting unlawful, harmful for public interest, potentially damaging or simply morally questionable behaviour at work, which helps to identify inappropriate behaviour or situations in organisations where normal channels of communication would not work or would be difficult to use, mainly because of the fear from sanctions. Reportable wrongdoing can take many forms: corruption, fraud, professional misconduct or negligence.

With Baker McKenzie’s Budapest office celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, we spoke with Partners Zoltan Hegymegi-Barakonyi and Akos Fehervary to learn more about the firm’s track record in the country as well as what we can expect with the former passing on the Managing Partner role to the latter this July.

Three European law firm partners walk into a Bar Association. No punchline here, just a fascinating look into how these partners came together on a mission to translate ICC arbitration rules into Hungarian. To mark the publication of the translated rules, one partner each from Bittera, Kohlrusz & Toth; LFB Laszlo Fekete Bagamery; and Jeantet – Avocats, brainstormed and co-organised a half-day arbitration conference at the headquarters of the Budapest and Hungarian Bar Associations in Budapest.

Entering into force on February 19, 2021, the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility aimed, according to the European Commission, “to mitigate the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic and make European economies and societies more sustainable, resilient, and better prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the green and digital transitions.” CEE Legal Matters spoke with lawyers from Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Romania to learn what each country focused on, with its Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), and what difficulties lie ahead, now that these plans have been submitted to the EC.

On 31 May 2022 the EU’s securities markets regulator, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), published its supervisory briefing to ensure convergence in the supervision of investment funds with sustainability features, and in combating greenwashing by investment funds.

Oppenheim has announced the leadership of the firm will be handed over to its three newly-appointed board members – Jozsef Bulcsu Fenyvesi, Aron Laszlo, and Istvan Szatmary – with Fenyvesi and Laszlo to hold non-executive roles and Szatmary to take over the role of Managing Partner on July 1, 2022.

A new tax regime and extended price cap regulations are aimed at addressing Hungary's high inflation rates and growing energy prices, while the economic prognosis for the autumn and winter seems gloomy, according to Nagy & Trocsanyi Managing Partner Peter Berethalmi.

CMS has advised a group of investors on a Sofina-led EUR 220 million series D financing round for the Rohlik Group. White & Case advised the Rohlik Group. Linklaters reportedly advised Sofina. Pierstone reportedly advised some of the investors.

The Budapest Chamber of Commerce (“BCC”) in May 2022 proposed the change of the system of the itemised tax of small businesses (“KATA”). The main goals of the change are to keep the advantages of the system, but also to prevent and eliminate unlawful tax avoidance.