Hungarian Competition Authority issues less fines, focuses on banks
There has been a substantial decrease in the past two years of the number and amount of fines issued by the Hungarian Competition Authority on businesses operating in Hungary, local economic daily Világgazdaság reported today.
The declining trend is evidenced by the fact that in 2013 the GVH imposed a total of HUF 11.7 billion in fines; this figure decreased to HUF 7.1 bln a year later, and further to HUF 5 last year. The highest amount of fines were imposed on cartels. Furthermore, the most common fines issued last year were for cases of consumer fraud, in 42 instances, Hungarian online daily index.hu reported.
The daily noted, however, that GVH has recently shown a tendency towards fining banks. Last year alone Hungarian banks were fined an accumulated HUF 3.35 bln.
Already this year, banks were fined a total HUF 4 bln for the Fidesz-government program entitled “BankAdat”, which enabled banks to share business secrets with each other and which the GVH said was in violation of both Hungarian and European Union competition rules, according to reports.
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