Part I — Situation overview

On Tuesday, 15 September 2026, the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office (KNYF), the body of the prosecution service dealing with high-priority corruption cases, carried out coordinated investigative actions in a multi-billion-forint bribery case connected to Volánbusz Zrt.’s passenger transport services and bus procurements. According to the statement, nearly forty officials took part in the operation, with the participation of the National Protective Service, the Asset Recovery Office of the National Bureau of Investigation and the Counter-Terrorism and Rapid Response Police as well. Searches and seizures took place at several locations, four persons were being questioned as suspects, and three of them were taken into custody. The KNYF is investigating the felony of accepting bribes committed by a person authorised to take independent measures, in criminal conspiracy and on a commercial scale, as well as other corruption offences, and has been conducting its own intelligence-gathering in the case since 15 May 2026. The chief prosecutor’s office did not release names. On the morning of the same day the Prime Minister said in Parliament that businessman Dániel Jellinek and Norbert Szivek, former CEO of the Hungarian National Asset Management Company (MNV), had been brought in; Jellinek’s group of companies indicated in a statement that its CEO had committed no criminal offence, and on 10 September had voluntarily complied with the investigating authority’s summons.

The antecedents of the case go back years. According to HVG’s summary, the investigation was launched on the basis of complaints by the Government Control Office (KEHI) and by Volánbusz itself and Volán Buszpark Kft.: according to the suspicion, the Volán companies acquired used buses and purchased real estate above their real value, and the difference was channelled into real-estate projects through intermediary companies and sham loan agreements. In this period the companies were supervised by the MNV, above which stood the Ministry of National Development. A week earlier the National Bureau of Investigation announced that eight former executives had been named as suspects, and that the order of magnitude of the financial loss under examination was around ten billion forints. The case is therefore not about a single contract, but about a pattern of procurement and real-estate transactions repeated over several years — precisely the type that MIAK’s analysis of 8 September 2026 on recording the status of accountability cases already touched on from the procedural side.

MIAK’s reading: criminal proceedings are the after-the-fact handling of corruption, and as such indispensable, but they are not in themselves a fix to the system. Taking someone into custody raises the question of responsibility; it does not rule out the case happening again. The transactions now under investigation were possible because the procurement and asset-sale decisions of state-owned companies fell outside the public procurement data assets, and the asset manager exercising ownership rights had no mandatory, documented valuation methodology. As long as these two shortcomings remain, the same pattern can be repeated at the next state-owned company in the next term — under any political composition.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Three authors provide the framework in which the current proceedings can be interpreted. Robert Klitgaard, the American economist and former professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, condenses the conditions of corruption into a single formula in Controlling Corruption (1988): corruption = monopoly + discretion − accountability. The procurements of the Volán companies were affected on all three factors: a single buyer, broad discretion over price and specification, weak external oversight. Susan Rose-Ackerman, professor at Yale University, devotes a separate chapter in Corruption and Government (1999) to the reform of public procurement, and presents quantitative evidence that criminal enforcement in itself has an effect on prices. At the same time she warns that bribery is not a lasting substitute for legal reform. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first Prime Minister, in his memoir From Third World to First (2000) offers a concrete thesis on the order of prevention and prosecution: the big cases were entrusted to the independent investigation bureau, while for the smaller ones the opportunities for corruption were reduced by simplifying procedures and removing discretion. The detailed treatment of the literature — by author, with quotations — is in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. The first fills the data gap of the transactions now under investigation, the second fixes the methodology of asset-management decisions, and the third places accountability beyond the government’s term.

3.1 An open database of the contracts of state-owned and municipally owned companies (bill submitted by 31 March 2027)

MIAK proposes that every business company in majority state or municipal ownership — including the Volán companies, transport and public-service companies, and asset managers — be obliged to publish its contracts worth more than five million forints gross within thirty days of conclusion, in machine-readable format. The scope of published data: the name and tax number of the contracting party, the beneficial owner as recorded in the register, the subject, value and duration of the contract, the type of procedure, the number of bidders, and every subsequent amendment together with its justification. The lesson of the current case is that it was not the lack of competitive tendering but the lack of data that made the pattern unnoticeable: a bus fleet passed on through an intermediary company at a multiple of the price is not visible from the individual contracts, but is immediately visible from the time series. The proposal extends the A1 public-money dashboard programme point to state-owned companies, and provides the data basis for the anomaly-detection system of A2 public-procurement transparency. In Klitgaard’s framework (see 6.4.1) this strengthens the accountability factor without taking away the flexibility of procurement.

3.2 A mandatory, documented valuation methodology for state asset-management decisions (by the end of the next parliamentary session)

The common element of the transactions under investigation is that the state or the state-owned company bought or sold at a price significantly different from market value. MIAK therefore proposes that for sales and purchases of state or municipal assets and for asset leases above one hundred million forints, two mutually independent valuations be mandatory, and that if the contract price deviates by more than ten per cent from the average of the valuations, the decision-maker must justify the deviation in writing and publicly. The justification — together with the valuations — should be added to the database under 3.1. This is not new bureaucracy: valuations are already prepared today, only their publication and the justification of deviations are not mandatory. The rule follows the same logic as the G19 radical transparency programme point, which requires publicity of the reasoning behind economic policy decisions; the G6 programme against rent-seeking also fits here, since a privileged position is most valuable when the price cannot be compared. According to Rose-Ackerman’s argument (see 6.4.2) the aim of procurement reform is not merely to reduce abuse but to improve the efficiency of purchasing decisions — documented valuation serves both.

3.3 Placing corruption investigation institutionally beyond the government’s term (founding act by 2028)

The current proceedings could get under way substantively because the investigating authority and the prosecution service allocated capacity to them. According to MIAK, accountability cannot depend on how much a given government wants it: the body organised on the model of Singapore’s corruption investigation bureau under the A10 programme point should be operationally independent, with its own budget and a multi-year, non-revocable leadership mandate, and should prepare an annual public report on the number, subject areas and outcomes of investigations — without details of specific cases. The conditions for setting up the institution must be fixed in advance, because the credibility of a corruption investigation office stands or falls on whether it can also proceed against those who set it up. The report should be linked to the institutional health report under the A6 checks and balances programme point. According to Lee Kuan Yew’s experience (see 6.4.3) the office on its own is not enough: it must be directed at the big cases, while for the smaller ones procedural discretion must be reduced — in other words, 3.3 only works alongside 3.1 and 3.2.

The three proposals are bound together by a single principle: action against corruption is systemic when it depends not on the strength of detection but on the structure of data and procedure. A good investigation closes one case; a good data structure prevents the next one.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Economy Comparable price breakdowns in themselves push state procurement prices downwards; the savings can appear in the same service (more and newer vehicles) The disclosure obligation places an administrative burden on smaller state-owned companies; the publicity of price information may also enable coordinated pricing on the supplier side
Public administration and asset management Mandatory valuation and the justification of deviations create a documented chain of responsibility for asset-management decisions The methodology may become a formality: two valuations close to each other but detached from the market “justify” the decision just as well; this is why the valuations must also be published
Justice and publicity The investigation office’s annual report makes the detection rate and procedural capacity measurable The blurring of public communication with ongoing proceedings may violate the presumption of innocence and may later also jeopardise the outcome of the proceedings

The main dilemma lies between publicity and business secrecy. Some state-owned companies also take part in market competition, so the immediate publication of the full scope of contract data could cause a competitive disadvantage. MIAK’s solution is that a deferral in time should be possible for competition-sensitive elements — for example the detailed technical specification — but the price, the contracting party and the beneficial owner should never be withheld. The proposal tips towards the risk side if the legislator raises the threshold of the disclosure obligation so high that contracts can be circumvented by splitting; the amendment register under 3.1 and the anomaly detection of A2 can together guard against this. The second risk is communicative: if the proceedings become a political spectacle, the credibility of accountability as a whole is damaged should a final conclusion fail to materialise.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (suggested KPIs)

MIAK proposes four performance indicators (KPIs, in English: Key Performance Indicator) from which it will be visible in 12 and 24 months whether the proposals have been implemented:

  • Coverage of the state-owned companies’ contract database: the suggested target is that by the end of 2027 at least 90 per cent of the contract value of companies in majority state and municipal ownership be available as machine-readable, public data.
  • Share of single-bid procurements and procurements without competitive tendering at state-owned companies: it is worth following whether this share falls annually; the A2 programme point set a reduction from 30 per cent to below 15 per cent for the entire public procurement market.
  • Justification rate of valuation deviations: the suggested target is that the written justification be public in 100 per cent of state asset transactions concluded with a deviation greater than ten per cent.
  • Share of assets actually recovered: it is worth following how much of the assets frozen or seized in corruption cases actually reaches the state after a final decision — this indicator is not publicly available today.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request is simple: the Volánbusz case should close not only as a criminal case but also as a regulatory lesson. On the basis of a Government proposal, Parliament could still in this session lay down the disclosure obligation for state-owned companies’ contract data and the valuation methodology for asset-management decisions — both are steps whose effect is independent of who is in power. Regarding the ongoing proceedings, MIAK asks all actors to keep the procedural facts separate from political interpretation: being taken into custody is not a verdict, and the suspects are entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Two MIAK foundational values are at stake. Transparency, because the transactions now under investigation did not go unnoticed for years because they were secret, but because they existed in scattered, incomparable form — transparency here means not disclosure but comparability. Accountability, because anti-corruption action is credible when its rule applies in the same way to the next government too; if the institution of accountability depends on the will of the majority of the day, then it is not an institution but a tool.

Part VI — Reasoning and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

In the economic segment, Portfolio published two articles in news-agency style: in the first it published the prosecution service’s statement verbatim, in the second the reaction of the group of companies. It is striking, however, that the paper’s headline says “arrest”, while the body of the article accurately quotes the chief prosecutor’s office’s wording “taken into custody” — the two concepts are not identical in public law, and in this case the difference is substantive. At the same time, Portfolio was the only one on the spectrum to provide business background: it recalled the parallel in dividend flows that an earlier press analysis had identified in the company circle concerned between 2019 and 2022.

In the left-liberal and public-affairs segment, the framing focused on the persons and the political significance. 24.hu produced the most detailed material: from the locations where people were brought in to the reconstruction of the four disputed transactions, relying on a television statement by an entrepreneur questioned as a witness in the case — the paper consistently presented these claims with attribution, not as facts. HVG worked on two levels: alongside the news article, it showed in an analysis that the threads may reach as far as the leadership of the former development ministry. Telex narrowed its focus to the statement of the group of companies and the circumstances of the bringing-in, while 444.hu highlighted the Prime Minister’s announcement in Parliament and then updated the article with the chief prosecutor’s office’s statement.

In the conservative segment, Magyar Nemzet made not the content of the case but the manner of the announcement the subject of its article: it objected that the head of government had acted as a “prosecution spokesperson”, and that antecedents had been left out of the announcement. This framing — criticism of the form of communication instead of the procedural news — also raises a substantive question, even if it is formulated with political intent: should the head of the executive make statements about an ongoing investigation before the investigating authority’s statement? Common to the whole spectrum is that none of the segments dealt with the question of procurement regulation — that is, how the next such case can be prevented.

6.2 Facts and data

Datum Value Source
Day of the coordinated investigative actions 15 September 2026 Statement of the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office (MTI), 15 September 2026
Number of officials taking part in the operation nearly 40 Statement of the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office, 15 September 2026
Questioning as suspects and taking into custody 4 persons questioned, 3 of them taken into custody Statement of the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office, 15 September 2026
Start of the chief prosecutor’s office’s intelligence-gathering 15 May 2026 Statement of the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office, 15 September 2026
Number of persons previously named as suspects 8 former executives National Bureau of Investigation, 11 September 2026 (Portfolio)
Order of magnitude of the financial loss under examination around 10 billion forints Information from the National Bureau of Investigation (24.hu, 15 September 2026)
Period under examination 2015–2018 HVG, 16 September 2026; 24.hu, 15 September 2026
Basis for launching the proceedings complaints by the Government Control Office, Volánbusz and Volán Buszpark Kft. HVG, 16 September 2026
Hungary’s control of corruption indicator −0.17 (2024) World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators
Share of single-bid public procurements currently around 30%, suggested target below 15% MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points)

Two data points require a separate note. First: the four transactions detailed by 24.hu — the leasing deal involving 85 buses, the two-billion-forint maintenance contract, the leaseback of 250 used buses and the sale of the Kecskemét depot — are based on television claims by an entrepreneur questioned as a witness in the case, not on official findings; MIAK therefore builds no proposal on these amounts. Second: it is not publicly known how much of the seized assets will eventually return to the state — this gap is the direct reason for the fourth indicator in 5.1.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — the data-poor structure of the case: A1 (public-money dashboard) provides the model for the open database, A2 (public-procurement transparency) the anomaly detection, A3 (asset declarations) the cross-check of beneficial ownership, A10 (independent corruption investigation office) the institutional placement, and A6 (checks and balances) the annual institutional report;
  • Economy (programme points) — G19 (radical transparency in economic decision-making) for the publicity of the reasoning behind decisions, G6 (programme against rent-seeking and regulatory capture) for uncovering privileged market positions;
  • Transport and infrastructure (background material) — the professional background of public transport vehicle procurement and the Volán integration: the consequence of overpriced procurement is an ageing vehicle fleet, which also shows up in the service indicators of KO1 (real-time public transport data);
  • Justice (programme points) — I1 (court transparency) provides the trackability of the duration and outcome of proceedings, which is also needed to measure the conclusion of corruption cases.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

The central claim of Klitgaard’s volume is that corruption is not primarily a moral but a structural phenomenon: it appears where an actor is in a monopoly position, has broad discretion, and weak accountability. The book sets this out in a single relationship that has become textbook material:

“Illicit behavior flourishes when agents have monopoly power over clients, when agents have great discretion, and when accountability of agents to the principal is weak. A stylized equation holds: CORRUPTION = MONOPOLY + DISCRETION − ACCOUNTABILITY.”

At the same time Klitgaard warns that multiplying rules does not automatically improve the situation: a rule that creates a monopoly can itself become an instrument of corruption, and a rule so complex that the client does not understand it gives the official de facto discretion. A useful rule is one that narrows discretion — in his example, the tax inspector who has no discretion over deductible items. In the Volánbusz case this distinction gives the proposal its direction: MIAK does not propose a new approval stage, but a rule that makes price and contracting-party data comparable, thereby strengthening the accountability factor without further narrowing the flexibility of procurement.

📖 Source: Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

6.4.2 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government

Rose-Ackerman calls public procurement the classic terrain of “grand corruption”: governments transfer significant financial benefits to private firms through procurement contracts and concessions, and bribery shifts monopoly rents to the investor, with a share for the decision-maker. The volume also presents quantitative evidence that criminal enforcement produces a measurable effect on prices. On the aftermath of the Italian anti-corruption investigations she writes:

“In Italy the cost of several major public construction projects reportedly fell dramatically after the anticorruption investigations of the early nineties. The construction cost of the Milan subway fell from $227 million per kilometer in 1991 to $97 million in 1995. […] Overall successful bids on public tenders were reported to be 40 to 50 percent lower in 1997 than five years before.”

At the same time, regarding procurement reform the author speaks explicitly of a trade-off: discretion increases the incentive for corruption, but overly rigid procurement rules can also be criticised — most scandals, however, occur where there are no rules at all, or where the evaluation committee’s decision is overridden. This diagnosis fits the Hungarian case: in the procurements of the Volán companies the problem was not the rigidity of the rules but the fact that the decision could not be verified afterwards. This is why MIAK proposes the documentation and publicity of valuations instead of further tightening the procurement procedure rules.

📖 Source: Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

6.4.3 Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First

The anti-corruption chapter of Lee Kuan Yew’s memoir is instructive because it offers not a theory but an order of priorities. From 1959 the Singaporean government paid special attention to areas where discretion was used for personal gain, and deliberately directed the independent corruption investigation bureau at the top level:

“We decided to concentrate on the big takers in the higher echelons and directed the CPIB on our priorities. For the smaller fish we set out to simplify procedures and remove discretion by having clear published guidelines, even doing away with the need for permits or approvals in less important areas.”

The thesis has two parts, and in Hungary too it only works as a whole. The investigation office is for the big cases — the scale of the Volánbusz case is exactly that. For mass, everyday procurement decisions, however, the effective tool is not after-the-fact prosecution but the reduction of discretion and clear rules published in advance. MIAK’s package of proposals follows this duality: 3.3 places the office institutionally, while 3.1 and 3.2 fix the data and the valuation rule where the large number of decisions makes individual investigation impossible.

📖 Source: Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First — The Singapore Story 1965–2000

6.5 International comparison

The publicity of state procurement data has produced measurable results in several countries. In Slovakia, after mandatory contract publication was introduced in 2011, public procurement prices in the categories made transparent fell by five to eight per cent on average; the essence of the rule was not the tightening of competitive tendering, but that a contract does not enter into force without publication. In Ukraine, after the introduction of the ProZorro electronic system, the share of single-bid procedures fell from forty per cent to eighteen. South Korea’s fully electronic public procurement system brought a cost reduction of around twelve per cent. In Brazil, the experience of the central transparency portal operating since 2004 is that roughly fifteen per cent of the corruption cases uncovered started from civil data analysis — in other words, public data does not replace the authorities but gives them work. On the asset declaration side, the example of Georgia shows what improved measurement means: after the introduction of the electronic system the share of flagged discrepancies multiplied, which meant not an increase in corruption but an improvement in detection. These examples point in one direction: the highest-yield step is not a new prohibition, but comparable data.

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A1 — Public-money dashboard
  • A2 — Public-procurement transparency
  • A3 — Publicity of asset declarations
  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances
  • A10 — Independent Corruption Investigation Office

Economy

  • G6 — Programme against rent-seeking and regulatory capture
  • G19 — Radical transparency in economic decision-making

Justice

  • I1 — Court transparency

Transport and infrastructure

  • KO1 — Real-time public transport data

Proposed new programme point: Open contract database of state-owned and municipally owned companies — for the Transparency and anti-corruption policy area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 16 September 2026 — topic 1):

Knowledge-base references (books):

  • 📖 Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption
  • 📖 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform
  • 📖 Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First — The Singapore Story 1965–2000

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A1, A2, A3, A6, A10)
  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G6, G19)
  • MIAK policy area: Justice (programme points; programme point ID: I1)
  • MIAK policy area: Transport and infrastructure (background material; programme point ID: KO1)
  • MIAK press monitor, 16 September 2026 — topic 1, score: 93/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • World Bank — Worldwide Governance Indicators, control of corruption indicator
  • Transparency International — Corruption Perceptions Index
  • European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) — annual reports
  • Electronic Public Procurement System (EKR) and the TED European public procurement database

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