Top Legal
EXECUTIVES In Hungary 2022
The most influential legal executives in the Hungarian economy
Top Legal
Content Foreword MARKET TALK Legal Market Talk: The Challenges and Opportunities of 2022 LEGALTECH LegalTech Points the way to a More Client-Focused Approach NEW APPOINTMENT Legal Leadership Built on Multiple Points of Experience HUNGARIAN COMPETITION AUTHORITY GVH: Elevated Cooperation Equals Reduced Consequences DIGITAL LEGISLATION Time to Craft Legislation Appropriate to the Digital World AI AND ATTORNEYS The Brave New World of AI and Attorneys LEGAL EXECUTIVES BIOGRAPHIES Ágnes Balassa Gergely Bán Torsten Braner Zsolt Cselédi Alice Dessewffy Zoltán Forgó László Hajdu Bálint Halász Eszter Kamocsay-Berta
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EXECUTIVES
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In Hungary 2022
13 17 József Kapolyi
18 21
Gábor Király Levente Lajos Judit Lantos
22 24
Richard Lock Balázs Lohn
25 27 28 31 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48
Kornélia Nagy-Koppány László Partos Dóra Petrányi Csaba Polgár András Posztl János Rausch Gergely Stanka Bálint Szűcs Erika Tomori János Tamás Varga Zoltán Várszegi LEGAL LISTINGS Law Firms With International Affiliations
50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 85
Published in 2022 • EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robin Marshall • CONTRIBUTORS: Annamária Bálint, Balázs Barabás, Kester Eddy, Csilla Lengyel, Bálint Szőnyi • LISTS: BBJ Research (research@bbj.hu) • NEWS AND PRESS RELEASES: Should be submitted in English to news@bbj.hu • LAYOUT: Zsolt Pataki • PUBLISHER: Tamás Botka, Business Publishing Services Kft. • Address: Madách Trade Center, 1075 Budapest, Madách Imre út 13-14. • Telephone +36 (1) 398-0344, Fax +36 (1) 398-0345, • ADVERTISING: AMS Services Kft. • CEO: Balázs Román • SALES: sales@bbj.hu, csilla.lengyel@bbj.hu • CIRCULATION AND SUBSCRIPTIONS: circulation@bbj.hu • www.budapestbusinessjournal.com • ISSN 2732-3307
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TOP LEGAL EXECUTIVES
Foreword financial management of the Union budget and the financial interests of the Union may be seriously compromised by breaches of the principles of the rule of law committed in a member state.” It also argued that linking compliance to rule-of-law matters with funding was justified. “The European Union must be able to defend those values, within the limits of its powers,” it said. Unsurprisingly, the reaction from the two countries was angry. In a Facebook post, Hungary’s Minister of Justice Judit Varga claimed that the court decision “is living evidence that Brussels is abusing its power.” Poland’s Deputy Minister of Justice Sebastian Kaleta said on Twitter, “We need to defend ourselves against an attack on our sovereignty, Poland has to defend its democracy against blackmail that aims to take away our right to decide about ourselves.” We chose not to cover the rule-of-law issue in this publication precisely because the ECJ ruling was imminent and would impact how the dispute moves forward. The EU has already held back COVID Recovery and Resilience Facility funding worth EUR 36 bln for Poland and EUR 7 bln for Hungary. Will more money be frozen? The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that guidelines would be provided in a matter of weeks to give “further clarity about how we apply the mechanism in practice.” Since then, the matter has been pushed very much into the background by the events in Ukraine (as has been the case with just about every other running news story from before the invasion), but it is something that will impact the work of Hungary’s lawyers (and lawmakers), and we will keep an eye on how it develops.
To be writing the foreword to a publication dedicated to legal executives and all that goes with the law – justice, transparency, equality, the precise use of language – at this time seems slightly surreal. Depending on your point of view, our timing is either unfortunate or immaculate. I am writing this on the fifth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And let us be clear; this is not a “special military operation” as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin tried to characterize it. Nor is Ukraine a Nazi state (its President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish). Nor is there a “genocide” against Russian speakers (Zelensky was born in the east of the country and is a Russian speaker himself). No dispute is entirely one-sided. Ukraine has controversial legislation in place that limits teaching in ethnic minority languages. That has been a source of tension between Ukraine and Poland and Romania, as well as Russia, but the country that appears to have been most irritated and vocal about this, up until Putin’s invasion, had been Hungary. Such laws may not be helpful for international peace and friendly relations, but they are not a casus belli for war. And they most certainly are not evidence of genocide in action. Hungary has other international legal arguments to fight. Alongside Poland, it has been accused of democratic backsliding and rule-of-law violations. The issue is complex and longstanding, but having failed to persuade the two countries onto a different course, the European Commission decided to link compliance to funding. For a while, Hungary and Poland threatened to veto the current EU budget, which runs until 2027 and only agreed to let it pass if the European Court of Justice, the EU’s supreme court in matters of European Union law, reviewed the validity of the rule-of-law mechanism. That ruling had been keenly anticipated and arrived as we worked on this publication. The two countries had argued that the mechanism attacks their sovereign right to decide on matters such as judicial independence. But the ECJ ruled, “The sound
Robin Marshall Editor-in-chief Budapest Business Journal
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Market Talk
Legal Market Talk: The Challenges and Opportunities of 2022 The Budapest Business Journal asked a panel of leading Hungarian lawyers to give us an overview of the local legal landscape from the perspective of international law firms. Our conversation included the likely major legal themes for 2022, the impact of the general election on the legislative workload, if the law is still an attractive
Graphic by Inkoly / Shutterstock.com
career for GenZ, and whether Hungary’s legal education is fit for purpose?
to the pandemic, healthcare and price regulation to avoid or to minimize the effects of inflation, to name a few. I expect these trends to continue in 2022.
By Robin Marshall BBJ: What do you expect to be the major legal themes in 2022. András Posztl: Any areas of law driven by technology, especially privacy and cybersecurity. We live in challenging times where states take an ever-bigger role in our everyday lives: for example, the restrictions related
Kristóf Ferenczi: Decarbonization and Environmental Social Governance (ESG) will dominate the agenda of most of our clients and, thereby, also the legal arena. It influences a broad range of issues, from the scope of transactions,
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LegalTech
LegalTech Points the way to a More Client-Focused Approach The legal industry sometimes gives the impression of being somewhat old-fashioned, adapting to technology only when and if required. Be that as it may, it would be in its best interests to embrace all kinds of tools that speed up day-to-day operations. At stake is elevated client-centered service that is already becoming the bottom line in other sectors. Lawyers have no choice but to start using tech across a broad spectrum not to lag behind the competition. By Bálint Szőnyi
THE ‘WAR FOR TALENT’ IN THE DIGITAL BATTLEFIELD
The days are long gone when there was a single designated computer hooked to the internet in each law office, and you had to sign up for a slot to spend some privileged time online. Mind you, that was also an era where state-of-the-art tech meant mini tape dictaphones and noisy fax machines. LegalTech has evolved at a break-neck pace since then. Day-to-day routines now involve automated contract drafting, AI-driven document analytics and document management tools supporting due diligence. At least, that is the case at DLA Piper Hungary, a pioneer among the “BigLaw” international law firms that is experimenting with and implementing the latest top-of-the-line LegalTech solutions. Its efforts were recognized at The Financial Times Europe Innovative Lawyer Awards 2021, when it won the “Most Innovative Law Firm” title. DLA Piper’s innovation strategy is connected with the “Law&” initiative, a foundation associated with some of the brightest minds in the game, namely Professor Richard Susskind (for more on his significance, see the separate box). Gábor Papp, head of professional development at DLA Piper Budapest, explains that productivity and business continuity support, as well as solutions for new ways of working, are the main motivations of the legal industry to adopt tech on a large scale. But, he notes, for now, experimental solutions typically only pop up on the radar of startup-style nomadic
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The next generation of lawyers will be heavily affected by the digital transformation of their profession. The issue is hot for them because freshly graduated junior associates have typically carried out the activities most concerned by automation. In particular, legal research could be taken to a new level by machines to the extent that trainees cannot compete. The same goes for summarizing relevant rulings. This development could hamper the professional growth of young lawyers. In parallel, law firms are starting to seek alternative ways of attracting and retaining the best talents. As DLA Piper’s Gábor Papp sees it, Generation Z lawyers do not share the traditionally cautious approach of older generations towards LegalTech. Consequently, one might think that increasing demand for GenZ lawyers will also bring an increased appetite for LegalTech solutions. “In light of the above, I am convinced that enhancing state-of-the-art technology in a law firm environment could soon become a new battle zone in the current war for talent,” he says.
New Appointment
TOP LEGAL EXECUTIVES
Legal Leadership Built on Multiple Points of Experience Changes at the very top of law firms don’t happen that often; in the case of Denton’s Hungary, there has not been such an event for 23 years. The Budapest Business Journal sat down with the newest managing partner on the block, Gábor Király (officially the country managing officer of the Hungarian office). By Balázs Barabás BBJ: What was your path to becoming the Hungarian managing officer? Gábor Király: I started with Dentons in 2015, and prior to that, I worked at various commercial banks as well as the Hungarian National Bank (MNB). Originally, I started as an in-house lawyer at the MNB way back at the beginning of the 1990s. Then I joined an international law firm in 2002. From there, my professional path led me to private practice, and I became a general counsel of - a major Hungarian commercial bank. After just one year, I was appointed to the board, and I became deputy CEO of the bank. In 2013, I decided to go back to my private practice, and I advised the bank as an external counsel for another two years.
I joined Dentons in 2015, and I became a partner in 2021. On Jan. 1, 2022, I was appointed country managing officer, taking over the position from István Réczicza, who served as managing partner for more than 23 years, including seven at Dentons [editor’s note: Réczicza’s team was previously the Budapest office of White & Case; the New York City law firm pulled out of the Hungarian market in April 2015]. Under his leadership, Dentons has become not only one of the top law firms in Hungary but also one of the very few that provides advisory services beyond the law to offer full-scale support to clients’ transactions. BBJ: What is the strategy that you would like to follow? GK: My priorities are twofold. First, I aim to grow Dentons by expanding our legal and advisory capabilities in Hungary’s regulated sectors such as energy, tourism,
“Entrepreneurs who established firms at the beginning of the ’90s are now nearing retirement age. Their businesses, many of which have grown into large companies, will need new leadership, and they will need to either be passed down to a new generation, sold or taken public. Therefore, I see significant growth potential in areas such as succession planning and wealth management. Coming from the banking world, I see a substantial need for innovative solutions in these areas.”
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Hungarian Competition Authority
TOP LEGAL EXECUTIVES
GVH: Elevated Cooperation Equals Reduced Consequences
The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) now puts greater emphasis on cooperation, allowing companies to “make it up” to consumers, Csaba Rigó, the head of the organization, tells the Budapest Business Journal. That might even be enough to avoid a fine.
and unfair practices. We give companies the opportunity to cooperate and thus reduce the consequences of the violation. The firms subject to proceedings have the chance to compensate consumers and commit themselves to fair competition. In this way, they may even be exempted from paying a fine.
Csaba Rigó
By BBJ Staff BBJ: How has the coronavirus affected the work of the Hungarian Competition Authority? Csaba Rigó: Regardless of the pandemic, the organization reached a turning point in 2020. GVH, which celebrated its 30th anniversary, adjusted its approach to infringements
BBJ: How can companies cooperate? CsR: There are two stages in competition authority cases: the investigation (detection, evidence gathering) and the Competition Council procedure. The latter involves a review of the evidence by GVH and the company’s arguments and concludes with the decision of the council. Before that, GVH confronts the parties with its stance. This is the last stage where companies can decide whether they want to cooperate or go to court after the decision has been made. One way of cooperating is through active redress: in this case, the company must make commitments to compensate for the competition problem, which is strictly controlled by the authority. In 2020, we had several significant instances in which where businesses chose this path, including Tesco and Spar. The competition authority investigated Tesco-Global Áruházak Zrt. because it failed to make it clear that its website operated as an online shopping service and not as a web store. There is a significant difference between the two, as the chain store could not guarantee the delivery of the products it offered. Tesco failed to draw customers’ attention to this fact, and a large number of customers received, without prior warning, orders that had at least one replaced or missing product. During the proceedings, GVH accepted the voluntary commitment offered by Tesco of HUF 407 million to remedy the identified competition problem. The other major case concerned Spar. The company, which has significant market power, imposed unilateral
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Digital Legislation
Time to Craft Legislation Appropriate to the Digital World There is one primary reason why there are so many infringements related to commercial practices, consumer protection, and market dominance, legal experts tell the Budapest Business Journal: we are effectively trying to navigate the digital world without proper digital legislation. By BBJ Staff Digitalization has reshuffled not only the way we shop and use services, but also the way businesses reach consumers. The fact that someone is not actually “there” gives ground to a lot of misinterpretation, or worse, deception. The online world is an ideal space for someone to make claims that may not be entirely true: having the country’s broadest or fastest broadband coverage, for example. Since the transition to online has taken place rapidly, legislation originally crafted for the physical world has somewhat anemically struggled (and failed) to keep pace, and there remain many unregulated areas. Advertising and the sponsorship of influencers is one such area. It is not adequately regulated, and although the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) has created recommendations, it can provide guidance at best. For example, when advertising products, it says an influencer should mark the post with a hashtag at the beginning if it is advertising. CREATIVE INTERPRETATION “However, since this is not a law, in the event of a dispute, the influencer may argue that they have made it clear to their followers in other ways that the post contained an advertisement and has a chance to win in court,” István Solt, senior associate in cooperation with act Bán & Karika Attorneys at Law told the BBJ. “The court then rules on an individual basis, as there is not a sufficient number of cases based on which precedent and governing law have been established,” he adds. “Until comprehensive EU-wide and itemized domestic regulations are in place, lawyers are forced to resort to creative interpretation of the law when discussing a case.”
István Solt
The above is reflected by the cases the GVH has dealt with in the past few years. With the importance of online commerce increasing, the authority is paying more attention to online marketplaces, webshops and digital comparison tools. Due to their dynamics and the unique characteristics
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AI and Attorneys
TOP LEGAL EXECUTIVES
The Brave New World of AI and Attorneys PÉTER LAKATOS, THE MANAGING PARTNER AT LAKATOS, KÖVES AND PARTNERS, OUTLINES LAWYERS’ CONCERNS IN THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
By Kester Eddy BBJ: What effects will the application of AI have on lawyers’ work? Péter Lakatos: From a helicopter view, the situation is that AI will definitely affect how we practice law. The problem is that, in principle, it sounds very good that there is a machine which helps your efficiency, helps you to do things that take a long time, like the due-diligence process. It will also help you to draft contracts, very big, heavy contracts, where you have to go and check manually, to fix the grammar and details, so it’s helping a lot. Drafting complex documents is a very complex, timeconsuming, highly intellectual process. So, the technology helps to search, and that’s what it’s mainly used for nowadays: it’s basically extending the search technology. In the traditional way, if you put a word search into the system, then the software just searches for that particular word. But in the AI world, if you start to teach the machine, the technology can conclude what you
are looking for could also be somewhere else. An IT guy tried to explain it to me once, and what I understood is that this is a very advanced, sophisticated patternrecognition research tool. BBJ: So it’s not just a word search; it’s a more meaningful concept search? PL: Yes, which, in principle, would very much help our work and does. The problem is that this technology is not [usable] off the shelf. It can handle only that part which it has been taught, but it requires a lot of energy and time to teach it to make it usable for your own purposes. It involves a combination of processes and a lot of work and a lot of investment. BBJ: It needs training, in fact, like a new employee? PL: We have to train the system for it to be useful for us, and this is one of the fundamental or conceptual issues that we have to deal with. Second, lawyers are… It’s a social science if you like, and there is a certain thinking process around how
WILL AI MEAN LESS TRAINING, POORER SKILL SETS? While applying AI to legal searches means considerable savings in time pondering wordy texts, it also causes issues in training young lawyers, argues Péter Lakatos. BBJ: If trainee lawyers are no longer in the data room checking texts, doing the “grunt work,” doesn’t this mean they are losing training experience? PL: Absolutely: the more time they spend in the data room, the more documents they have reviewed, and that’s a learning path. Because the trainee is forced to go through several hundred documents and needs to look at these with a purpose: it’s not just reading. The trainee is learning a lot; he or she can see a lot of things. But this is just finding the information; the second [element] is to evaluate [it].
BBJ: With a senior lawyer? PL: Before he or she reports to a senior lawyer, they need to take a professional view, and that’s part of the learning curve. When the trainee finds something in a document in the data room, first they will need to evaluate it and take a position. But now, the machine will come on, saying this or that. I can well imagine asking: but did you consider X? And the answer will come back: No, because the machine said Y. So, they are not learning. Lawyering, to a large extent, is the ability to make a judgment on a situation, but [with AI] they will not be doing that. It takes two, three, four years until someone gets the experience to read, process, and make a judgment. But in the AI world, how will they get the learning? Big question. I don’t know.
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Legal Executives Biographies
Legal Listings
Law Firms With International Affiliations A LISTING OF THE LEADING LAW FIRMS IN HUNGARY WHO ARE EITHER PART OF AN INTERNATIONAL GROUP OR A NETWORK OF FIRMS. THE DATA IS TAKEN FROM THE LATEST ISSUE OF THE ANNUAL BBJ BOOK OF LISTS.
CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro 1 Olswang LLP Magyarországi Fióktelepe
60
18
12
50
7 Partners 22 +5 Local Partners
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
cms.law
2 DLA Piper Hungary www.dlapiper.com
Oppenheim 3 Ügyvédi Iroda
43
13
16
www.oppenheimlegal.com
Lakatos, Köves és
4 Társai Ügyvédi Iroda www.lakatoskoves.hu
Dentons Réczicza
5 Law Firm www.dentons.com
CERHA HEMPEL Dezső és Társai 6 Ügyvédi Iroda
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
✓ ✓ – ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
39
14
9
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
38
16
10
✓ ✓ – ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
36
9
10
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
www.cerhahempel.com/ hu/offices/magyarorszag
85
NAME OF ASSOCIATE NON-HUNGARIAN LAW FIRM OR COOPERATION NETWORK WORLD HQ YEAR ESTABLISHED OTHER
LIFE SCIENCES
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
DISPUTE RESOLUTION
CORPORATE / M&A
ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION
TMT
EMPLOYMENT
EU
COMPETITION
ENERGY
BANKING AND FINANCE
TAX
REAL ESTATE
COMMERCIAL
NO. OF PARTNERS OF HUNGARIAN OFFICE ON SEPT. 15, 2021
NO. OF TRAINEES IN HUNGARY ON SEPT. 15, 2021
COMPANY WEBSITE
NO. OF ATTORNEYS WITH LICENSE TO PRACTICE IN HUNGARY ON SEPT. 15, 2021
RANK
LEGAL SPECIALITY AREAS
Data protection & cybersecurity, CMS Cameron compliance & McKenna Nabarro investigations, Olswang LLP restructuring and London insolvency, new 1779 technologies, state aid Capital markets, data protection and DLA Piper UK LLP privacy, film and London media law, fintech, 2006 project finance, restructuring and insolvency
–
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer London 1743
NO. OF OFFICES WORLDWIDE YEAR HUNGARIAN OFFICE ESTABLISHED
FIRMS ARE RANKED BY NO. OF ATTORNEYS (WITH LICENSE TO PRACTICE) IN HUNGARY ON SEPTEMBER 15, 2021
TOP LOCAL EXECUTIVE ADDRESS PHONE EMAIL
80 1989
Erika Papp 1053 Budapest, Károlyi utca 12. (1) 483-4800 budapest@ cms-cmno.com
90+ 1988
András Posztl 1124 Budapest, Csörsz utca 49–51. (1) 510-1100 reception.budapest@ dlapiper.com
Ulrike Rein 1053 Budapest, 28 Károlyi utca 12. 1989 (1) 486-2200 office@ oppenheimlegal.com
Restructuring & Clifford Chance insolvency, data LLP, Multilaw, protection & GDPR, Péter Lakatos Interlaw, aviation, investment 1075 Budapest, Association of A protection, Madách Imre út 14. European Lawyers, 1991 regulatory, (1) 429-1300 Global Leaders compliance and mail@lakatoskoves.hu Forum investigations, info@lakatoskoves.hu – consumer – protection Infrastructure and project finance, joint Gábor Király ventures and private Dentons 1061 Budapest, equity, capital 200+ Europe LLP Andrássy út 11. markets, financial 20151 London (1) 488-5200 restructuring and 2013 budapest@ insolvency, data dentons.com protection, media law, film finance, AI State aid, data protection, project financing, restructuring and insolvency
CERHA HEMPEL Rechtsanwälte GmbH Vienna 1921
7 1998
Tamás Polauf Wilhelm Stettner 1011 Budapest, Fő utca 14–18. (1) 457-8040 office@ cerhahempel.hu