We describe below the most important changes.
1. Changes to the company registration procedure
As of 1 March 2024, the Court of Registry will provide the Articles of Association attached to the application with an electronic signature and electronic time stamp and will ensure that the Articles of Association is accessible through the registry. The searchability and quick access of the company documents is made possible by displaying a link in the company details section of the Articles of Association. This service will be available for applications registered on and after 1 March 2024 for the articles of association of incorporation (changes), i.e. in a staggered manner.
In the case of applications for company registration and registration of changes submitted on and after 1 January 2024 the procedure will be simplified, legal representatives will not be required to provide each document with a qualified electronic signature and a qualified time stamp but will only need to sign the application itself in this way.
2. Change in the details of a pledge on a quota of an Ltd.
As of 1 January 2024, in the case of a limited liability company, the registry will not only contain the fact of the pledgee, but also the amount of the claim secured by the pledge or the amount up to which the pledgee may seek satisfaction and, if stipulated, the prohibition of alienation and encumbrance or prohibition of alienation of the quota.
A novelty is that data on the secured pledge created by pledging a quota is also included in the business register. The quota pledge is registered or cancelled on the basis of a request for change registration by the member (pledgor) or the pledgee.
The Court of Registry only examines the contract of pledge whether the details of the company and its member in the contract of pledge match the details in the registry and whether the details requested for registration match the contents of the contract of pledge.
In the case of a quota pledge already registered before 1 January 2024, the new data must be requested in the next amendment to other data of the registry, submitted by 31 December 2024 at the latest, without payment of fees and publication costs. After the deadline, the submission has the general fee and publication costs.
3. Changes related to the new legal instrument of detachment
Prior to the amendment, a legal person could be divided into several legal entities by way of complete division or partial division under the Civil Code. In complete division, the legal person shall terminate and its assets shall pass to two or more legal persons created by the division as legal successors. In partial division, the legal person shall continue to operate and a part of its assets shall pass to another legal person created by the division as a legal successor
With the amendment, a new legal institution, detachment has been introduced as a sub-case of partial division. In the case of a detachment, the separating legal person survives and creates the successor legal person with part of its assets by becoming its sole member.
4. Data transfer
The data received (updated) through the Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS) must be entered in the Hungarian registry by the Court of Registry. However, the data content received may not fully correspond to the data content required by the company register. According to the law effective as of 1 March 2024, the court will enter the information received via BRIS in the registry and, if it finds that not all the data required by the relevant act are included in the registry, it will simultaneously call on the company to report the missing data within 60 days.
