Less company data will be available free of charge in Hungary but companies will receive their own company extract once in a month and they may find out easier if a request for insolvency proceeding has been filed against them.
The well-known and free of charge ‘extract from company register’ (available in Hungarian only at https://www.e-cegjegyzek.hu/ as ‘Tárolt Cégkivonat’) will be replaced by ‘online real time company information’ which will contain only the company’s register seat, registration number, European unique identification number (EUID), main activity, data of representatives, and information on liquidation, winding up procedures and dissolution.
To request these data, an identification procedure via ‘Ügyfélkapu’ will be necessary. Such identification will be introduced, according to the explanation of the act, in order to prevent any abuse of free accessible information on companies. Moreover, the number of requests allowed per person per month will be limited. Unlimited data and requests will be granted only against service charges.
(The act foresaw the 1st of October this year as the effective date for these changes, however, when we published this article, the old system was still alive.)
A pleasant change will be an automatic and free notification from the company registry to the company on any changes in its data. The electronic notice will be sent to the company’s official e-mail address in the form of an authentic certificate. In addition, each company will receive its own company extract in an authentic form each month.
Two further procedures will be introduced in the Companies Act. One of the procedures intends to settle the fate of non-proprietary rights that have not been removed from the register in the course of a termination without successor.
The other procedure may be started upon request and it aims to arrange the assets of a company that has been dissolved by a voluntary liquidation. It may be applied if, after completion of the liquidation and dissolution of the company, an asset is found which belonged to the dissolved company but it was not allocated within the framework of the liquidation procedure. Such procedure may be requested only by the former members of the dissolved company.
Business organizations have until now been able to obtain a certificate from the National Office for the Judiciary (OBH) that no bankruptcy / winding-up application has been filed against them or that winding-up proceedings have not yet been initiated against them. As of July 1, 2019, the paper-based process has been replaced by an electronic administration, thus making administration faster and simpler. The certificate can be applied for electronically via the website https://csodbetekinto.birosag.hu/ created for this purpose. Following the registration, you can apply for a certificate electronically by means of electronic authentication (Ügyfélkapu).