Norbert Varga

* Supported BY the UNKP-18-4 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities.

WWI significantly influenced the development of private and trade law. The regulation of economic law institutions came up as a necessity. To protect the consumers’interests, the state interfered with private law affairs and regulated sharking procedures, unfair competition and cartel law. By taking European regulation results into account, cartel regulation organisations were introduced by the Cartel Act; the most important of them was the Cartel Court. This paper shows the most important steps of the antitrust regulation in Hungary’s special attention to the relevant European cartel regulations.

FINANSOWANIE

The project ‘Continuity and Discontinuity of Pre-war Legal Systems in Post-war Successor States (1918–1939)’is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe. Visegrad Grant No. 22030159.

The regulations of the economic competition agreement were introduced by the 20th Act of 1931 after the economic crisis attention to the cartel regulations in Europe in the interwar period. We can realize that the regulation of the unfair business completion has a long codification history which started in the period of the Dualism. Before the end of dualism the Hungary regulated some question related to the cartels special attention to the circulation of commodities. In my presentation, I aim to describe the Hungarian and European codification antecedents and steps (for example: the regulation of industry) of the first Hungarian Cartel Act. This codification process was very important in Hungarian economy and social life because the economic changes started processes in both the field of legal life and legal sciences, and as a result of this, a demand arose to legally codify any rules in connection to cartels. The foundations of these were found in private law, especially in the regulations of the commercial law, which could be further elaborated upon and lead to a development of the regulations on the annulment of contracts in connection to dishonourable business competition.

 * Supported by János Bolyai Research Scholarship (BO/00198/18/9). Almási, A háborúhatása, 8.

The lawsuit of public interest was introduced by the 20th Act of 1931 after the economic crisis in the interwar period special attention to the regulation of cartels in Europe. This Act regulated the unfair economic agreements in Hungary. The Hungarian Cartel Law regulated the supreme organs related to the cartels. In my paper I would like to examine the cases of the Cartel Court and its jurisdiction. By examining the cases, it can be stated that the role of the Cartel Court was strongly administrational in connection to lawsuits of public interest. The Cartel Court and the Cartel Committee become one of the most decisive legal institutions in the Hungarian Economic life up until the middle of the 20th Century. The state intervention appeared in the Hungarian Private Law special attention to the cartel regulation.

Hungary introduced provisions on cartels with the enactment of Act XX of 1931. To protect good morals and public interests, the Act regulated the tools of state intervention and supervision. This legal field was the summarization of the proceedings of cartel supervisory authorities, in which not only executive state bodies but also judiciary organs took part. The paper focuses on the development of the Hungarian cartel law, with special attention to the practice of the courts and the aims of the State related to the supervisory power over the cartels before the codification of the Hungarian cartel law. The main aim of the study is to put an emphasis on the tasks of the responsible Minister and the legal director, mainly by analyzing the related primary sources. The purpose of this study is also to explain the tasks of the responsible Minister after the Cartel Act came into force, and the demonstration of the practice related to the proceedings. The main question is what the functions of the supervisory authorities related to the cartels were. In connection with the legal director, I would like to illustrate his task as a representative of state interests in the mainly cartel-related lawsuits.