HUNGARY Law and Practice Contributed by: Tamás Éless, Zsolt Farkas, Sarolta Szabó and Lili Bischof, Oppenheim Law Firm
between a consumer and a business invalid by the public prosecutor and other persons, as set out in the Hungarian Civil Code. The CCP sets out special rules for representative actions. In addition, Hungarian law recognises collective actions in the form of an “associated action” in dis- putes arising from consumer contracts, breaches of labour law and damage caused by environmental pol- lution. 3.8 Requirements for Cost Estimate Hungarian law does not impose any requirement for lawyers to provide clients with a cost estimate of the potential litigation at the outset. The party may request the court to order an injunctive relief, which the court orders before the hearings if it considers it justified. The provisions on the injunctive relief are set out in 6 Injunctive Relief . There are no further interim applications that would be available for the parties before the hearing of a claim. 4.2 Early Judgment Applications Termination of the Case In its statement of defence, the defendant may submit a formal defence, in which it requests the court to terminate the proceedings on formal grounds, without adjudicating the claim on the merits. Therefore, if the defendant considers that the court should not have accepted the claim, it may invoke the existence of a procedural obstacle and ask for the termination of the case. The court shall decide on this matter at first. If the court considers that a ground set out in the CCP for terminating the case exists, it needs to terminate the case ex officio – ie, even if the defendant did not request the termination. 4. Pre-Trial Proceedings 4.1 Interim Applications/Motions The court shall terminate the procedure in certain cases specified by the CCP in an exhaustive list.
If the court considers that the lawsuit should not be terminated, the court shall proceed with the eviden- tiary part of the lawsuit and adjudicate the claim on the merits. Partial Judgment The court may decide on separate claims or parts of a claim that can be adjudicated separately by deliver- ing a partial judgment if further hearings are needed to decide on the remaining claims or the remaining parts of a claim. This means that certain issues can be settled earlier than the complete conclusion of the procedure, although, in practice, courts rarely adopt partial judgments. Interlocutory Judgment Furthermore, if the dispute pertaining to the exist- ence of a right enforced by an action can be sepa- rated from the dispute pertaining to the amount or volume claimed by the plaintiff on the basis of that right, the court may establish the existence of that right by delivering an interlocutory judgment. In such an event, the hearing pertaining to the amount or vol- ume claimed by the plaintiff shall not be continued before the interlocutory judgment becomes final and binding. This mechanism can expedite proceedings by ensuring that the legal basis is clarified before the court undertakes a potentially extensive assessment of quantum. 4.3 Dispositive Motions The CCP does not regulate dispositive motions as such, thus, there are no commonly made dispositive motions. Nevertheless, in its statement of defence, a defendant may ask the court to terminate the pro- ceedings, which is similar to a “motion to dismiss” in common law systems. However, no similar institution exists under Hungarian law to the “summary judgment motion” of the common law systems. 4.4 Requirements for Interested Parties to Join a Lawsuit If a person has a legal interest in the outcome of a pending action between other persons, that person may intervene in the lawsuit in order to facilitate the success of the party with identical interests.
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