The Hungarian Communications Market Developments and ...

The Hungarian Communications Market Developments and Regulation between 2004 and 2008
2.6 Market surveillance of electronic
communications services
Market surveillance is a special authority duty with the twofold goal
of revealing violations of law, on the one hand, and of gathering
information, facts and data, on the other hand, which the Authority
may rely on for the purpose of efficiently intervening as a public
authority in the market. NHH wishes to achieve that service providers
comply with the provisions of legal regulations and subscriber
contracts by voluntarily abiding by the pertaining law. As of 2007 the
Authority has switched to a fundamentally new system of procedures
in accordance with the new rules of the Act on public administration
procedures 22 . Contrary to previous legislation, the new procedural
model stipulates that if no violation of law can be established in a
given case, the Authority will simply terminate the investigation,
whereas in the case of violation of law it will call the attention of the
service provider concerned to law-abiding conduct. Besides facilitating
voluntary abiding by the law, this solution makes authority work
easier, as it is demonstrated by the 2007 figures: the subsequent
control of the 196 notices issued revealed that 86 percent of service
providers eliminated the deficiencies.
Regular authority duties
The Authority shall ex officio investigate violations of law based
upon the reports received, the experience gathered from previous
controls, and the analyses carried out within the framework of
market surveillance activity with a view to ensuring the protection
of consumers (users, subscribers) at risk in accordance with predefined
plans based on individual requests and reports, which may
either involve an investigation covering the entire activity of a given
service provider or an entire service area (market).
The authority control model in operation since 2008 preclude
cases that service providers fail to meet obligations imposed by the
Authority. Authority control – a follow-up control system – is a market
surveillance procedure based model that guarantees the enforcement
of lawful conduct. The enforcement tool most frequently
used by the Authority so far has been penalty. Contrary to previous
years, in line with the new order of procedure, penalties have been
imposed primarily as part of ex officio procedures.
Figure 2.2: Changes in substantive market surveillance penalties
imposed
Thousand
HUF
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
pcs
150
120
90
60
30
0
0
2004
On request
Ex officio
2005
2006
Number of decisions imposing penalties
Total sum of penalties
2004
2005
2006
2007
2007
10.09.2008
10.09.2008
Thousand
HUF
75,000
60,000
45,000
30,000
15,000
0
Source: NHH
As a result of the follow-up control of notices by the Authority, the
number of decisions imposing a penalty has more than tripled as
compared to previous years’ average, principally due to violations of
law concerning individual subscriber contracts and modifications of
the general terms of contract. In addition to penalties, the Authority
may, however, resort to other tools, too. In accordance with Eht., it
may also use other means to raise the attention of consumers and to
develop conscious consumer behaviour.