An increasing share of Hungary’s e-commerce turnover is being generated through foreign online marketplaces, prompting the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) to pay particular attention to these platforms, the authority said on Friday.
The GVH’s Competition Council said it seeks to secure direct compensation and refunds for consumers alongside, or instead of, imposing fines in its proceedings. Since April 2020, the authority has recovered tens of billions of forints for Hungarian shoppers.
The GVH recalled that About You used misleading promotional practices and exerted psychological pressure on consumers, according to an investigation concluded last November. The fashion retailer acknowledged the violations and agreed to provide more than 500 million forints in refunds, while the German company also paid a 505 forint million fine to the Hungarian central budget.
Hungarian consumers have received at least 882 million forints in direct compensation from Chinese-founded online marketplace Temu in recent weeks. Following the GVH’s proceedings, the platform’s European operator also paid a 437 million forint fine to the Hungarian budget and committed to implementing a comprehensive compliance programme.
The GVH’s Competition Council has imposed more than 700 million forints in competition fines on eMAG, including 460 million forints in 2026 alone. Most recently, the platform’s Romanian-based operators were fined 225 million forints on Thursday for again failing to fully meet their commitments.
The authority noted that eMAG had previously undertaken to provide more than 1 billion forints in direct compensation to consumers.
The GVH also recalled that Wish agreed in February 2023 to compensate between 100,000 and 150,000 consumers, for a total value of 150–225 million forints.
Proceedings involving Answear and CCC were concluded with commitments aimed at substantially improving the platforms’ practices concerning price displays and promotional offers.
According to the PwC Digital Commerce Overview, Hungary’s e-commerce market continued to expand in recent years, exceeding 2,100 billion forints in turnover by the end of 2025.
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