Dániel Arányi

I am a partner and head of the Competition & EU and Projects & Energy teams of the Budapest office. I focus on regulatory and competition matters in the energy sector, and also offer in-depth experience in tech & comms.

My team and I have a keen interest in energy, and always thrive working with the technical and business experts of our Hungarian and international clients to make sure that every aspect of the matter is covered and the pieces fall into the right place at the right time. We have a variety of clients active in virtually the entire electricity and oil and gas supply chains, who have trusted us to guide them through complex cross-border and domestic projects and transactions, be it an M&A deal, project development, financing or corporate restructuring. I have represented our clients before the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority, the Euratom Supply Agency and the European Commission.

I particularly like the excitement of learning and analysing how the markets and businesses of our clients' work. I am convinced that such a deep dive into market and business correlations is key in handling competition matters and requires continuous cooperation with the expertise of our clients. Our competition team has implemented this approach across numerous industry sectors and advised domestic and multinational clients on merger clearance, commercial anti-trust matters, cartel investigations, sector inquiries and state aid issues, including representation before the Hungarian Competition Authority, the Hungarian State Aid Monitoring Office and the European Commission.

I have been fortunate enough to have gained a valuable insight into the tech & comms industry, and understand the energy and buzz that comes from working in an innovative field whilst advising our national and international clients on M&A deals, commercial agreements and regulatory issues such as spectrum management, frequency tenders and SMP obligations, to name a few.

Before joining Bird & Bird, I spent several years in the Budapest teams of other leading international law firms and was seconded to the Hungarian subsidiary of the international gas and electricity company GdF Suez for six months. In addition to my native Hungarian, I am fluent in English and have a good command of German.

• Advising a consortium of two of the largest Hungarian energy companies in their contemplated acquisition of a majority stake in the national electricity champion of a neighbouring country, because of the scope, complexity and the cross-border nature of the transaction as well as the large team involved.
• The acquisition of a hydro-power plant in Transylvania by a large Hungarian energy company was the most unusual matter I've been involved in, thanks to the location of the power plant as well as the setting and process of the closing of the transaction.
• Perhaps the most challenging assignment we successfully saw through was the clearance of a 3-to-4 merger in a sub segment of the energy sector without commitments and at the same time advising on gun jumping and energy regulatory aspects of the transaction.