About

Hungary was the location of British supermarket giant Tesco’s first foray into Central and Eastern European markets and where it established its first store in 1995. It has since expanded to currently operate over 200 stores and become the country’s third largest employer. Noted for his outstanding provision of commercial legal and compliance advice, Tesco’s head of legal – CE Ethics and compliance, Andras Levai leads a team of nine employees in the pursuit of mitigating the company’s legal risk profile. Also a member of the Tesco CE legal leadership team, Levai’s day-to-day work is connected with leading the ethics and compliance agenda including anti-bribery, fraud, competition compliance, data protection and similar matters across the Central European region, as well as local legal issues – mainly litigations and authority investigations – in Hungary. Describing what he has learnt in his career, Levai says, ‘Whilst supporting business projects I realised that being a good lawyer in itself is not enough to become a good in-house counsel. You should also be a good business partner, otherwise you will fail’. Before joining Tesco, Levai spent three and a half years in private practice at the Dr. Hidasi & Partners Attorney Law Office, where he worked on and obtained ‘a number of purchase and lease contracts, managed all legal cases of the companies and realised great experience in litigation’ – providing the platform for him to become one of Hungary’s premier in-house lawyers.