HUNGARY Trends and Developments Contributed by: István Varga and Viktor Előd Cserép, PROVARIS Varga & Partners
The two halves receive cases in an alternating manner. These rules on the composition of the council have been enacted with effect as of 1 June 2023. The senate may dismiss the complaint as inad- missible or admit it and annul the contested decision of the adjudicating senate of the Kúria and instruct the latter to proceed anew and ren- der a new decision. Decisions of the uniformity complaint council have the effect of uniformity decisions. Uniformity procedures may also be initiated by the president, vice presidents and division heads of the Kúria and the attorney general if it is nec- essary to render a uniformity decision or amend or annul an earlier uniformity decision to secure the uniformity of case law. As a recent development, in early November 2023, in a series of cartel damages litigations in which PROVARIS was involved, the I issued a uniformity decision on the statute of limitations in line with the firm’s arguments that will have an impact on litigation proceedings in practically all regional and appeal courts of Hungary. The Impact of EU Law on Civil Litigation in Hungary A current hot topic is the effective implementa- tion of the jurisprudence of the CJEU in Hungary. Preliminary rulings are rendered by the CJEU in Hungarian cases time and again. The difficulty is that, from time to time, parties dispute whether these preliminary rulings have been implement- ed in their entirety by the courts. As confirmed by courts at different levels of the Hungarian court system already, as well as in a growing number of scholarly publications (sometimes written by judges), in such cases additional, clarifying pre- liminary rulings need to be obtained from the
CJEU, and the (partial) non-adherence to pre- liminary rulings needs to be remedied through appropriate procedural remedies (eg, retrial) or, where this has not taken place, through substan- tive redress (eg, Köbler damages actions). Two related recent preliminary rulings (in cases C-620/17 and C-362/18, both initiated by Hun- garian courts in proceedings concerning the implementation of earlier preliminary rulings rendered in the preceding procedures) focused primarily on these issues. In the trial aimed at damages for the violation of EU law based on the Köbler judgment of the CJEU (case C-224/01), the court of first instance fully implemented preliminary ruling no C-620/17 obtained in that case. The court of second instance overturned this decision and provided a different interpreta- tion of the same preliminary ruling in appeal pro- ceedings. The second instance judgment was then annulled by an adjudicating senate of the Kúria in revision proceedings. The decision of the Kúria , which included instructions for the second instance court to fully implement preliminary rul- ing C-620/17, was then annulled by the uniform- ity council of the Kúria in a uniformity complaint procedure, in which the interpretation of the sec- ond instance court was followed once again. In repeated revision proceedings, the adjudicating senate of the Kúria followed the position of the uniformity council and thus dismissed the plain- tiff’s damages claim. The procedures and the decisions have been the subject of academic papers and discussion and are an example of the interest in and sometimes diverging interpre- tations of EU law and the relevance of the juris- prudence of the CJEU. All concerned cases are pending before the Constitutional Court in the framework of a constitutional complaint aiming at enforcing strict adherence to preliminary rul- ings. In all named cases PROVARIS represented and represents the plaintiffs.
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