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.

Facial recognition system is considered an artificial intelligence solution empowered by a camera system, which can identify persons viewed based on image data stored in a related data base. Such systems have already been implemented around the globe in many countries and generally faced severe criticism, especially in Western democracies. Naturally, facial recognition systems have the capability of helping to prevent terrorist attacks and similar severe crimes an detect suspects and other persons of interest. In practice, however, such systems often provide inaccurate or biased results.

In 2019, two EU directives were adopted which must be transposed into Hungarian labour law within a short deadline. In order to comply with EU Directive 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working conditions and EU Directive 2019/1158 on work-life balance for parents and carers, the modifications of the Labour Code should be adopted by the beginning of August 2022. According to the current information, no substantive work has been started by the Hungarian legislator to modify the Labour Code in order to ensure the compliance with the provisions of the EU Directives.

CMS Budapest Partner and CEE Managing Director Dora Petranyi has been appointed as Global Co-Head of the firm's Technology, Media, and Communications Group, alongside CMS Germany's Pietro Fringuelli.

Small and medium-sized enterprises could save tens of billions of forints a year by reducing employment administration, according to the latest proposal by the Ministry of Finance.

Mihaly Harcos, former Deloitte Partner and Tax Litigation Head, has joined the Budapest office of Bird & Bird as the new Head of the firm's Tax practice.

Contributed by KNP Law.

Good news for the consumers, but extra work for businesses. From the end of May, shops and webshops are no longer able to round up their discounts by inflating their prices for a short period before the sale. From now on, when announcing discounts, they always have to indicate the previous price of the products, which can only be the lowest price within at least 30 days before the price cut.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Savoric & Partners, and Filip & Company have advised Borealis on a binding offer for its nitrogen business from the Agrofert group. Wolf Theiss advised Agrofert. Oppenheim, Boyanov & Co, and PRK Partners reportedly advised Borealis as well.

Once upon a time, two eminent Hungarian scientists made a mathematical breakthrough. They developed the first convex, homogeneous, mono-monostatic object, which they named the "Gomboc" after the famous Hungarian folk character. The Gomboc always returns to its single stable equilibrium point no matter how you put it down, without using any weights. The Gomboc also has one unstable equilibrium. It is possible to balance the body in this position, but the slightest disturbance makes it fall.