<\/p>\n
J\u00f3zsef V\u00f6r\u00f6s, a lawyer linked to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n and L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros, a close friend of the PM\u2019s, has recently bought Mezort Zrt., an agriculture company formerly owned by Lajos Simicska, a once powerful businessman who waged an unsuccessful campaign against Orb\u00e1n before the last parliamentary election.<\/p>\n
Company records show that V\u00f6r\u00f6s\u00a0acquired the company on 25 October. Sources familiar with the deal said that other former Simicska assets will also end up in the hands of people close to Orb\u00e1n and M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros.<\/p>\n
V\u00f6r\u00f6s\u2019s law firm and Mezort Zrt. did not respond to Direkt36\u2019s questions.<\/p>\n
This deal marks the end of Simicska\u2019s long reign as one of Hungary\u2019s most influential businessmen. Simicska and Orb\u00e1n became friends in high school, later went to the same law school, and spent most of their adult life building up Fidesz, the party now governing the country. Orb\u00e1n was fighting on the frontline of politics while Simicska was working behind the scenes to provide a solid financial background.<\/p>\n
Simicska built an empire which depended mostly on state contracts while maintaining a powerful media conglomerate that had been supporting Fidesz for years.<\/p>\n
The friendship ended years ago, after Orb\u00e1n won reelection in 2014 by another landslide and took steps to marginalize his former friend. The first signals of the deteriorating relationship came when people linked personally to Simicska started to lose their positions in the government. In early 2015, the conflict erupted publicly when Simicska told several news outlets that \u201cOrb\u00e1n is a spunk.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the following years Simicska\u2019s media businesses became openly critical with the government and the businessmen made it clear in several interviews that he would like to see Orb\u00e1n falling out of power. His efforts were not successful as Orb\u00e1n won the 2018 elections comfortably again.<\/p>\n
After the vote, Simicska shut down two of his news organizations, the daily Magyar Nemzet and a radio station called L\u00e1nch\u00edd R\u00e1di\u00f3. Then, in July his companies\u2019 spokesperson issued a statement saying that all of Simicska\u2019s companies would be bought by Zsolt Nyerges, one of his longtime business partners who broke with Simicska over his war with Orb\u00e1n. News site G7 reported at the time that Nyerges would be just an intermediary and Simicska\u2019s assets will eventually be taken over by the circle of L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros, the former mayor of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s hometown, who became the prime minister\u2019s closest business ally in the past few years.<\/p>\n
J\u00f3zsef V\u00f6r\u00f6s, the lawyer who bought Mezort Zrt., has ties to both Orb\u00e1n and M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros. He represented M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros at a land auction in 2016 and works as a legal advisor at a football foundation created by Viktor Orb\u00e1n, which is run by M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros. V\u00f6r\u00f6s is a board member of the sports club of Felcs\u00fat, Orb\u00e1n\u2019s hometown. The board\u2019s chairman is Orb\u00e1n, and M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros is also a member.<\/p>\n
The cover photo shows L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros. The picture was taken by Tam\u00e1s Botos\/444.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A lawyer with ties to Viktor Orb\u00e1n and his closest business ally bought an agricultural company of Lajos Simicska, who fought a long and unsuccessful campaign against Orb\u00e1n before this year’s parliamentary election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[440],"class_list":["post-4958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-az-orban-csalad-uzletei","author-petho-andras"],"authors":[{"term_id":440,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"petho-andras","display_name":"Andr\u00e1s Peth\u0151","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/av_Peto_Andras.png","url2x":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/av_Peto_Andras.png"},"description":"[:hu]Andr\u00e1s a Direkt36 egyik alap\u00edt\u00f3ja, szerkeszt\u0151je \u00e9s \u00fcgyvezet\u0151 igazgat\u00f3ja. Kor\u00e1bban az Origo vezet\u0151 szerkeszt\u0151je volt, miel\u0151tt a port\u00e1l r\u00e9sze lett a korm\u00e1ny propagandag\u00e9pezet\u00e9nek. Andr\u00e1s dolgozott a BBC World Service-n\u00e9l Londonban \u00e9s a Washington Post t\u00e9nyfelt\u00e1r\u00f3 rovat\u00e1n\u00e1l is. R\u00e9szt vett sz\u00e1mos nagy nemzetk\u00f6zi nyomoz\u00f3 projektben, k\u00f6zt\u00fck a Panama-iratok feldolgoz\u00e1s\u00e1ban. K\u00e9tszer is elnyerte a legjobbnak \u00edt\u00e9lt t\u00e9nyfelt\u00e1r\u00f3 cikkek szerz\u0151inek j\u00e1r\u00f3 Soma-d\u00edjat. T\u00f6bbsz\u00f6r tanult \u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjjal az Egyes\u00fclt \u00c1llamokban: 2008-ban a World Press Institute programj\u00e1ban, 2012-13-ban Humphrey-\u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjask\u00e9nt a Marylandi Egyetemen, 2019-20-ban pedig Nieman-\u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjask\u00e9nt a Harvard Egyetemen. Andr\u00e1s t\u00f6bb magyar egyetemen is tan\u00edtott \u00fajs\u00e1g\u00edr\u00f3 kurzusokat.\r\n[:en]Andr\u00e1s is a co-founder, editor and executive director of Direkt36. Previously, he was a senior editor for leading Hungarian news site Origo before it had been transformed into the government\u2019s propaganda outlet. He also worked for the BBC World Service in London and was a reporter at the investigative unit of The Washington Post. He has contributed to several international reporting projects, including The Panama Papers. He twice won the Soma Prize, the prestigious annual award dedicated to investigative journalism in Hungary. He was a World Press Institute fellow in 2008, a Humphrey fellow at the University of Maryland in 2012\/13, and a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2019\/20. Andr\u00e1s has taught journalism courses at Hungarian universities.[:]","first_name":"Andr\u00e1s","last_name":"Peth\u0151","user_url":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9282,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4958\/revisions\/9282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4958"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}