Hungary Top Court May Rule on Pension Fund Nationalization Case
December 22, 2011, 10:01 AM ESTBy Zoltan Simon
Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Hungary’s Constitutional Court will consider a case next week brought by mandatory private-pension fund members against the government after the effective nationalization of retirement savings.
Justices will consider the case at its Dec. 28 session, the Budapest-based court said in an agenda published on its website today.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban last year forced more than 3 million private-pension fund members to turn over retirement savings to the government or lose the right to a state pension. The government effectively nationalized $13 billion in private- pension fund assets this way and used it to plug budget holes.
About 100,000 members remained with the funds. The government will continue to claim all of their pension-related contributions indefinitely, Orban said last week.
--Editors: Alan Crosby, Paul Abelsky
To contact the reporter on this story: Zoltan Simon in Budapest at zsimon@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net
