LEGAL ADVICE – Europeancourtprocedure

Legal Advice

Luszcz Law Firm provides comprehensive legal advice in three primary areas: competition law, intellectual property law, and European Union law. We represent clients in these fields before the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, national authorities and courts, and in out-of-court negotiations and settlement proceedings.

Competition Law and Digital Regulation

Competition law safeguards fair and effective markets across all sectors of the economy. It is designed to prevent anti-competitive agreements, including cartels, and prohibits abuses of dominant market positions. It also governs mergers and acquisitions to ensure that transactions do not restrict competition.

Businesses can become targets of investigations by the European Commission or national competition authorities. In such cases, early strategic advice and expert support are essential. We provide comprehensive legal advice, from preventative compliance programmes to robust defence in contentious proceedings.

Competition law can also serve as a strategic tool. If your business is affected by unfair conduct from competitors, suppliers, or customers, we help you design and implement an effective response, whether through negotiation, regulatory complaints, or litigation.

Many jurisdictions are introducing new digital regulations targeting “digital gatekeepers” such as Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon. Digital market rules can be enforced directly before national courts, even without prior regulatory action. If anti-competitive conduct is harming your business, we assist in determining the most effective course of action— whether that involves filing a complaint with the relevant authority or initiating court proceedings. We also help clients prepare for follow-on damages actions resulting from regulatory decisions.

Abuse of Dominance

We advise on unilateral conduct by dominant undertakings and represent clients in litigation and out-of-court proceedings. Our experience include:

Refusal to supply, refusal to provide services, or refusal to grant licences, including unjustified refusals to licence intellectual property.
Termination of interoperability or withholding of source codes, particularly in IT markets where dominant platforms restrict interoperability or access to updates, potentially foreclosing dependent service providers.
Exploitative pricing, including excessive pricing assessments.
Technology transfer and licensing, combining competition and IP analysis of technology transfer and licence agreements.
FRAND licensing of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms, in cooperation with economic experts.
Misuse of the patent system, including strategies aimed at artificially extending patent protection or blocking market entry.

Cooperation between Competitors

Horizontal agreements

We provide advice on cooperation between independent companies operating at the same level of the production or distribution chain, including patent settlements and R&D collaborations.

Vertical agreements

We provide advice on distribution, franchise and other supply chain agreements, ensuring compliance with EU and national competition rules.

Merger Control

Most jurisdictions operate merger control regimes that empower authorities to block transactions or impose remedies when approving mergers and joint ventures. We assist clients in assessing merger control and foreign investment risks at an early stage of deal planning. Our services cover the full transaction lifecycle – from risk assessment and notification strategy to negotiations with regulators – ensuring that deals proceed efficiently and securely.

State Aid and Subsidy Control

State aid and subsidy control rules require careful structuring of public funding to ensure compliance with EU law. We advise beneficiaries and competitors on:

Compatibility assessments of State aid with EU laws and submissions before the European Commission
Representation in state aid investigations
Enforcement before national courts
Proceedings before the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning foreign subsidies that distort competition

Unfair Competition

We represent clients in litigation and out-of-court disputes involving unfair market practices, including:

Infringement of a competitor’s reputation
Calls for boycott
Passing off (misleading imitation of appearance or business identity)
Unlawful comparative advertising
Misleading customers

Intellectual Property

We advise and represent clients on copyright, database, and AI-related matters, both in litigation and transactional contexts. Our services include:

Structuring of optimal copyright positions in cooperation agreements
Addressing copyright and patent issues related to software and AI applications
Ownership and title assessments within corporate structures and collaborations
Copyright dispute resolution
Copyright compliance of AI applications (text and data mining, AI training on protected content)
AI compliance (including text and data mining and AI training on protected content
Compliance with EU legislation, including the CDSM Directive and the AI Act
Protection of databases under EU and national law

Trademarks: Acquisition, Opposition, Damages, and Restitution of Profits

We provide comprehensive trademark services, including:

Ownership assessments
Trademark filings and opposition proceedings
Trademark litigation and dispute resolution
Quantification and recovery of damages and unjust enrichment, in cooperation with economic experts
The interface between trademarks and competition law, including comparative advertising and the assessment of franchise and distribution systems

Representation before the EU Courts

Complex regulatory and commercial disputes frequently culminate in litigation. Whether you are seeking to appeal a regulatory decision, contest procedural measures, intervene in support of an authority, or defend against a claim, thorough preparation and experienced legal guidance are essential.

Over the past five years, our firm has acted in 21 cases before the EU Courts. Our services include:

Actions for annulment against acts of EU institutions (including acts of general application, such as Council and Commission decisions or regulations)
Trademark appeals against decisions of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO)
Preliminary ruling proceedings, including drafting submissions before national courts and written observations before the Court of Justice of the European Union
Damages actions against the European Union before the EU Courts

Viktor Łuszcz LL.M.

Attorney at law, Partner

Viktor specializes in competition and intellectual property law. He has extensive experience in cartel, merger, abuse of dominance, and State aid cases, as well as in trademark registration, opposition, and cancellation proceedings. Viktor also has in-depth practical knowledge of litigation before the EU Court of Justice and, in general, of EU law enforcement. He regularly speaks at conferences and authored a number of articles in these fields. He is a lecturer at the Pázmány Péter University, giving a postgraduate course on the EU Court of Justice.

Prior to joining Danubia Legal in February 2020, Viktor was the President of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (HIPO). In this quality, he proposed a legislative reform to allow for starting the examination of patent applications filed in English with the HIPO even before filing their Hungarian translations; this proposal was enacted in 2019. In 2017, he was elected as the Deputy Chairman of the Boards of Appeal Committee of the European Patent Office.

Previously he worked for eleven years at the General Court of the EU (Luxembourg) as a legal secretary (référendaire) and prepared drafts of judgments in the fields of intellectual property, competition, State aid, antidumping, and customs. In particular, Viktor worked on ten judgments in the so far largest petrochemical cartel case. He also prepared decisions in a number of actions brought against the EU Intellectual Property Office in trademark matters that nuanced the case-law regarding e.g. the standard of proof and 3D trademarks. Viktor’s past working experience also includes the European Commission’s DG Competition where he handled merger and cartel cases in construction and distributive trade sectors.

He was awarded Master of European Law degrees (LL.M.) by the College of Europe (Bruges) and the University of Rennes (France), after graduating from the Miskolc University and spending a research semester at the Technical University of Vienna.

Language Skills:

Hungarian, Polish, English, French, German

Memberships

Member of FIDE (Fédération Internationale de Droit Européen)
Member of MVE (Hungarian Competition Law Association)
Member of the Budapest Bar

Principal Areas of Expertise

Mergers & acquisitions, cartels, abuse of dominance, State aid, distribution agreements, technology licensing, trademark registration, opposition, revocation and invalidity proceedings, EU commercial law

Gergely Csurgai-Horváth LL.M.

Associate

Gergely specializes in competition law, with extensive experience in cartel investigations, merger control proceedings, abuse of dominance cases, and consumer protection matters. He has also gained practical experience in litigation before the European Court of Justice and, more broadly, in the enforcement of EU law.

Before joining Danubia Legal – Luszcz Law Firm in February 2024, Gergely was awarded a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in Competition Law at King’s College London. He previously worked at international law firms in Budapest, Zürich, and Brussels. Gergely’s past working experience also includes the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition in Brussels. In addition, Gergely served as a Chief Advisor at Hungary’s highest instance judicial forum, the Curia, where he was involved in private competition litigation, company law-related cases, and other civil disputes, preparing drafts of judgments in these fields.

Language skills:

Hungarian, English, German

Memberships:

Member of the Hungarian Competition Law Association

Member of the Budapest Bar

Principal Areas of Expertise

Mergers & acquisitions, cartels, abuse of dominance, State aid, distribution agreements, trademark registration, trademark opposition, trademark revocation and invalidity proceedings, EU Litigation