Private Enforcement: Hungary´s Amended Competition Act Offers Some Innovative Options

On 1 June 2009, amendments to Hungary's Competition Act came into force. Some of the amended Competition Act's most interesting changes are the provisions on private enforcement.

In June 2008, the European Commission (the "Commission") published its "White Paper on Damages Actions for Breach of the EC antitrust rules" (the "White Paper") which set out a number of suggestions for encouraging private damages actions and making those actions more effective. One of the problems that had been identified is the difficulty for victims of anti-competitive practices of quantifying the damage those practices caused. There is also the issue of how to ensure the attractiveness of the leniency regime (which leads to most of the Commission's competition investigations) is not reduced by any measures encouraging private damages actions.