The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) has concluded its competition supervision proceedings against Lidl Magyarország Kereskedelmi Bt. regarding potential price dominance claims, following the submission of a comprehensive package of commitments by the retail chain. The commitments aim to further tighten Lidl’s internal procedures for substantiating price leadership claims and to ensure that these claims are clearly based on data from the online Price Monitoring system.
The proceedings were initiated in the summer of 2024 after the GVH received indications that Lidl’s “Lidl: the champion of low prices” campaign could potentially mislead consumers regarding the retailer’s market position. During the investigation, the GVH reviewed detailed methodologies and internal regulations developed by Lidl, which incorporated the average monthly prices of a basket of 62 product categories monitored by the Price Monitoring system. The company also excluded unavailable products and adjusted for holidays or technical errors to ensure the accuracy of the comparisons.
As part of its commitments, Lidl will now clearly reference the Price Monitor in all communications, apply price leadership claims only when it is at least 2.5% cheaper than the second cheapest retailer, and ensure that it is the lowest-priced chain on more days than the second retailer during the month. Lidl will implement these rules through internal training and oversight from an external competition law expert.
According to the GVH, these commitments not only address potential concerns about compliance but may also strengthen competition and contribute to lowering consumer prices. The authority noted that the commitments could further enhance the price-reducing effects of the Price Monitoring system, which now tracks more than 5,000 food and household products across 140 categories in 1,799 stores. Previous analyses have shown that the system reduced retail gross margins on dairy products by approximately 10 percentage points and generated nearly 20 billion forints in savings for Hungarian households during the winter of 2023/24.
Given these measures, the GVH closed the proceedings without finding any infringement, making the implementation of Lidl’s commitments mandatory and recognizing their potential consumer and social benefits.