Daniel Arányi is a counsel in the Corporate, Commercial and Competition & EU Groups for Bird & Bird in Budapest, where he focuses on regulatory and competition matters in the energy sector, and also offer in-depth experience in tech & comms. His team and him has a keen interest in energy, and always thrive to work with the technical and business experts of the Hungarian and international clients to make sure that every aspect of the matter is covered and the pieces fall into the right place at the right time. They have a variety of clients active in virtually the entire electricity and oil and gas supply chains, who have trusted us to guide them through complex cross-border and domestic projects and transactions, be it an M&A deal, project development, financing or corporate restructuring. He has represented clients before the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority, the Euratom Supply Agency and the European Commission. He particularly likes the excitement of learning and analysing how the markets and businesses of the clients work. He is convinced that such a deep dive into market and business correlations is key in handling competition matters and requires continuous cooperation with the expertise of the clients. The competition team has implemented this approach across numerous industry sectors and advised domestic and multinational clients on merger clearance, commercial anti-trust matters, cartel investigations, sector inquiries and state aid issues, including representation before the Hungarian Competition Authority, the Hungarian State Aid Monitoring Office and the European Commission. He has been fortunate enough to have gained a valuable insight into the tech & comms industry, and understand the energy and buzz that comes from working in an innovative field whilst advising the national and international clients on M&A deals, commercial agreements and regulatory issues such as spectrum management, frequency tenders and SMP obligations, to name a few. Before joining Bird & Bird, he spent several years in the Budapest teams of other leading international law firms and was seconded to the Hungarian subsidiary of the international gas and electricity company GdF Suez for six months. In addition to his native Hungarian, he is fluent in English and have a good command of German.
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The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) launched a sector inquiry in October 2020 in order to analyse the procurement of beverages in the HoReCa sector (hotels, restaurants and cafés). The GVH suspects that Hungarian HoReCa outlets are reluctant to establish new supply relationships because (...)
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Issues around Big Data and access to data as an essential input are rapidly gaining importance in vertical relationships. This was made clear in the Commission’s recently published evaluation of stakeholder input in the context of the review of the VBER. In the past, the Hungarian (...)
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The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) keeps a watchful eye over advertisement claims regarding alleged COVID-19 treatments that exploit the vulnerability of consumers in the current pandemic. The GVH initiated an investigation against Max-Immun Kft. in May (VJ/22/2020), because of its (...)
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Public safety measures, supply disruptions and the unprecedented dramatic decline in automotive markets as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak have forced OEMs to stop production in numerous Member States. Such decisions will of course have far-reaching direct and indirect effects on businesses (...)
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The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) finally approved the acquisition of Invitel by DIGI, both significant players on the Hungarian telecoms market. However, with with a complex remedies package as published on 18 March 2020 (Vj/42/2018). As we already reported, the approval of the merger (...)
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In December 2019, the Hungarian Competition Office (“GVH”) acknowledged the notification of the acquisition of SáGa Foods Zrt. by Master Good Kft. without raising doubts (ÖB-0052/2019/6). After the implementation of the merger, the merging parties issued a press release, which was also sent to (...)
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The Hungarian Competition Authority (’’GVH’’) fined several undertakings which were found to have shared amongst themselves the EU-funded public procurement tenders for diagnostic imaging (MRI, CT and X-ray) equipment in Hungary in 2015. The total fine amounts to EUR 4.8 million, with GE (...)
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The Hungarian Competition Authority (“GVH”) has published updates to the collection of its important decisions relating to the Competition Act (the “Competition Act Collection”) and to the Consumer Protection Act (the “Consumer Protection Collection”), respectively, covering cases closed by (...)
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On 6 December 2019, the Hungarian Competition Office ("GVH") found that Facebook’s practice of referring to its services as “free” on its cover page and Help Centre misled Hungarian users. As a consequence, the GVH held that Facebook violated the Hungarian Unfair Commercial Practices Act (...)
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Fines are on the horizon for social media influencers not aligning their practice as set out by the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH), as may be deduced from the GVH’s Rubint decision of 16 September 2019. The case roots back to 2016, when the GVH started investigating social media (...)
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In case Vj/68/2016 (31 July 2019), the GVH accepted the commitments of 4Life Direct Kft., Red Sands Life Assurance Company (Europe) Limited and Red Sands Insurance Company (Europe) Limited to pay approximately HUF 100 million (EUR 3 million) to beneficiaries of insurance products compensating (...)
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In case Vj/17/2017 (31 July 2019), WizzAir committed to compensate airline passengers in a total amount of around HUF 250 million (EUR 760,000) affected by the Wizz Flex service since 2010. The customers were unable to benefit from the free flight modification under the Wizz Flex service (...)
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On 15 May 2019, the Hungarian Competition Authority (“GVH”) published the draft of the investigative report on its sector inquiry regarding payment card acquiring services in Hungary (the “Draft Report”) investigating the period between 2013 and 2018. The GVH initiated the sector inquiry in (...)
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The Hungarian Competition Authority ("GVH") unveiled a bid rigging cartel and imposed the maximum fines statutorily possible on the five solar panel installing companies involved. In the frame of the EU funded Environment and Energy Operative Program ("KEOP") published by the Ministry of (...)
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The Hungarian Supreme Court ("Kúria") annulled on 10 April 2019 a decision of the Hungarian Competition Authority ("GVH") which had imposed a € 321,000 fine on Alcon Hungária Kft. and Alcon Services AG Hungarian branch (jointly, the "Alcon Companies") for having applied a discount scheme (...)
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The Hungarian Competition Authority (“GVH”) had found that the Hungarian association of home decorators (in Hungarian: Lakberendezők Országos Szövetsége, “LOSZ”) restricted price competition in the period between 1997 and 2016 by issuing, and monitoring compliance with, its Fee Regulation in (...)
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Dawn Raid Communication In early 2019, the GVH issued a communications on dawn raids, detailing the process, the regulatory background and the rights and obligations of the GVH and the undertakings subject to such dawn raid. The Dawn Raid Communication summarized the GVH’s practice in dawn (...)
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The Hungarian Competition Authority (the “GVH”) further crystallized its assessment of gun jumping offenses in its decision imposing a fine on ETS Efficient Technical Solutions GmbH (“ETS”) for its failure to notify the acquisition of TGS Engineering Kft. (“TGS”) prior to its implementation (...)
