Arukereso General Counsel Gergely Szekely shares his career path, how he balances the roles of a legal gatekeeper and business partner, the strategy for involving external counsel, and the challenges he expects to dominate the agenda of general counsels in the e-commerce sector in Hungary.
CEELM: Tell us a bit about yourself and the career path you took leading up to your current role.
Szekely: I am a tech enthusiast lawyer. I graduated in 1999 from ELTE Budapest Law School and have over 25 years of experience spanning both private and public sectors, including technology and telecom firms, a small law firm, and Lovells – representing global legal expertise. I reached several career milestones: becoming the youngest leader in government dealing with IT-Telco and e-government projects in the mid-2000s, which produced tools and solutions we all now use – e-invoicing, digital signatures, and Hungary’s e-gateway (ugyfelkapu). Another highlight was joining the Vatera team in 2008, shortly after its acquisition by Naspers/Allegro, a South African and Polish e-commerce group. As Naspers grew regionally, my responsibilities broadened from local to cross-border legal support. The Hungarian Government sent me to EU management training in Maastricht (EIPA), and Naspers enabled me to attend an e-commerce management course at Harvard Business School. I later supported the Heureka team during Naspers’ Arukereso acquisition – the regional price-comparison leader for Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria – back in 2009 – 16 years ago already!
CEELM: How large is your in-house legal team currently, and how have you structured it to support the fast pace of e-commerce?
Szekely: Our legal team is unique in terms of size, roles, and its cross-border nature. The Heureka Legal Team is designed for a vertically segmented group structure that we refer to as a “gang structure.” In this context, a gang structure means that business roles are organized into distinct groups – called gangs – while functional teams, such as legal, work alongside these groups and management to provide support. Five attorneys make up the Heureka legal team, and I am dedicated to supporting the Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian businesses and companies, collaborating closely within our internal group. Additionally, we have carefully selected a network of external lawyers in each country where we lack local lawyers, for example, in Romania, Bulgaria, and the Adriatic region (Slovenia, Croatia). The main organizational goal is to keep our legal structure cost-effective and flexible while maintaining a close-to-business mindset.
CEELM: How do you balance being a legal gatekeeper with being a business partner who enables growth and facilitates innovation?
Szekely: This is really an encouraging task! We need to be focused always on the growth of the business, always forecasting the risks, and if any of these occur, try to mitigate the risk.
CEELM: What’s one thing you wish more people on the business side understood about the realities of in-house legal work in ecommerce?
Szekely: What I learned from my previous international career in the major e-commerce group – the main task of the legal people is to detect, forecast legal risks, support business decisions, not just do the paperwork. In other words, we are here to support the business and deliver solutions with risk analysis if we detect any.
CEELM: Are there any upcoming local or international regulatory changes that you expect to have a major impact on e-commerce legal teams?
Szekely: Sure, we have! The online business is changing and is getting more regulated than it was in the past. We have to be prepared for the regulatory changes and, what is more important, the legal enforcement and practice. As we are operating under a multi-locational regulatory environment, plus the EU regulation umbrella, we have to be prepared for sometimes the weirdest regulatory approaches and count on the differences.
CEELM: At what point do you decide to involve external counsel, and what qualities do you look for in the law firms?
Szekely: We cooperate with a limited number of externals. The main expectation is that they understand our online business, our products. As the online business requires rapid decisions and less paperwork, we appreciate the close-to-business approach and clear, short, supportive answers. For example, in Bulgaria, the next challenge is the EURO regime, starting on January 1, 2026. For preparing to welcome the Euro in Bulgaria, companies have to display their retail prices in local currency (BGN) and also in euros – this is a dual pricing scheme, which has a massive impact on our local price-comparison service, the pazaruvaj.com. We asked our external counsel to advise on how to implement the dual pricing scheme smoothly and, as we display prices from our business partner on the webshops, what changes to make. We were under a time pressure and simply had no time to share all details on pricing solutions – and it was not necessary because our Bulgarian external counsel was perfectly familiar with our services and delivered a clear, short message type what to change and what to leave as is.
CEELM: How often do you review or evaluate your outside counsel, and what criteria do you use to assess their performance?
Szekely: We have no standard process for this yet. If an external counsel’s involvement requires not just the internal counsel’s co-operation but more professionals from our side, we always ask for feedback.
CEELM: What do you foresee as the main challenges for General Counsels in the e-commerce sector in Hungary in the near to mid-term future?
Szekely: The technology – specifically AI tools – will reshape our roles. Growth-focused organizations will increasingly rely on AI to support daily tasks, and legal teams will be responsible for validating AI-generated assumptions to ensure compliance and accuracy. In addition, as AI advances, business models are shifting and bringing about new legal challenges, such as the need to implement new regulatory frameworks addressing AI’s impact. This trend will not bypass the Hungarian e-commerce market, and we must brace ourselves accordingly. Although integrated into the broader Central and Eastern European regional market, the Hungarian e-commerce sector faces unique challenges, including active local regulatory initiatives and legislation that are unfamiliar to many regional stakeholders, such as the management of a given e-commerce company and even AI tools, as well.
This article was originally published in Issue 12.10 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.