Practice areas
Every area of business law your company needs in Hungary
From day-to-day corporate law and employment questions to transactions, regulatory matters, residence and work permits and litigation, we support companies at every stage of their Hungarian operations. When a matter crosses borders, we bring in partner firms from the Cathay Associates network.
Corporate and M&A
We work with companies through the whole life cycle: formation, restructuring of ownership, acquisition and exit. We act for Hungarian and foreign investors alike,…
Read moreDispute resolution and insolvency
We come in when the other side stops paying, stops performing, or is already in liquidation. We work through the courts and outside them, and at the start of every…
Read moreChina
We are a Hungarian law firm headquartered in Budapest with our own office in Shanghai, and we have more than fifteen years of experience with China-related matters.…
Read moreEmployment law
Our employment work concentrates at two ends: the everyday documents, which simply have to be right, and the large interventions, such as reorganisation, collective…
Read moreIntellectual property
Intellectual property is only worth something if the right is registered to the right company, in the right countries, and someone is prepared to enforce it. We work…
Read moreData protection
We treat data protection not as a document pack but from the direction of the actual data flow: what the company collects, where it is stored, who it goes to, and…
Read moreCompetition and consumer protection
We defend in competition and consumer protection proceedings, and we work on the preventive side: building compliance programmes, reviewing commercial communication…
Read moreTechnology and innovation
We work alongside developers, manufacturers and start-ups at the point where the product is still moving but the contract already has to hold. The recurring question…
Read moreTax
Our tax work joins at two points: when a transaction structure has to be built so that it can be defended later, and when the tax authority is already asking. In the…
Read moreAdvertising, media and social media
We work alongside advertising agencies, media owners and advertisers, often in the last days before a campaign goes live. The point of the work is to keep the…
Read moreOnline marketing and e-commerce
We review webshops, newsletter programmes and social media presence against what actually matters later: what the interface promises, what data it collects, and what…
Read morePublic procurement
We act for contracting authorities and for tenderers. Once a procedure is running there is little room to move, so most of the work is decided when the documentation…
Read moreFMCG
We act as standing legal counsel to manufacturers and distributors of fast-moving consumer goods. Most of the work is not litigation: negotiating with the retail…
Read morePharmaceuticals
We work with pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and companies involved in clinical research, where commercial freedom is narrow, communication is regulated,…
Read moreSports law
We work with sports federations, clubs, agencies and athletes. Sports law is a separate field because federation and international regulations apply alongside, and…
Read moreChina
A contract, counterparty or debt in China?
With more than fifteen years of China experience and our own Shanghai office, we help with contracts, counterparties, disputes and debt recovery in China.
How we work
Várnai & Partner Cathay Associates is a full-service Hungarian business law firm. One Budapest team handles corporate law, employment, data protection, tax, intellectual property, competition, public procurement and dispute resolution, and when a matter calls for it, as one file rather than separate silos.
Our clients are mostly foreign-owned companies operating in Hungary and Hungarian companies expanding at home: manufacturers and trading companies, pharmaceutical and FMCG businesses, technology companies and sports organisations. Most matters touch more than one practice area at once. An acquisition, for example, usually brings employment, competition and data-protection questions with it; one team carries the matter through rather than handing it between specialists who each have to be briefed from scratch.
Where a matter reaches beyond Hungary, we carry it through together with our own and partner offices abroad: in China our own Shanghai office and cooperating Chinese lawyers, in any other country a member or partner firm from the Cathay Associates network, present in 98 countries. We have worked with them for a long time, so the workflow and the cost are predictable. You work with one contact person: we assign the right lawyer to your matter.
We work in Hungarian, English, German and Chinese, and prepare documents in those languages.
Related pages
Questions about our practice areas
Which lawyer will handle my matter?
We assign the lawyer whose experience fits the matter and the practice area as your main contact. If the matter covers several practice areas or jurisdictions, the work is coordinated centrally.
What if the matter touches more than one practice area?
That is the more common case, not the exception. One team carries the matter through, bringing in the practice areas it needs, rather than splitting it into separate engagements.
What does a matter in a given practice area cost?
If the matter fits a service package, you will find either a fixed fee or the predictable-offer terms there. In every other case we review the matter and send a written offer, either a fixed fee or hourly rates with an agreed cap.
In which language can I handle the matter?
In Hungarian, English, German or Chinese, as the client needs; we prepare documents in the same languages.
Not sure which practice should handle it?
Send a short summary. We pass it to the right lawyer and come back with a proposed first step.