What began as a magazine cover celebrating family, visibility, and acceptance soon evolved into one of the most significant privacy lawsuits in recent Hungarian media history.
Following dozens of articles, the unauthorized use of family photographs, and a series of serious allegations aimed at restaurateur Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter, his husband, neurosurgeon Dr. László Szegedi, and their infant daughter, the couple turned to the courts, arguing that their privacy rights had been repeatedly violated.
In a first-instance ruling, the Budapest Metropolitan Court ordered Mediaworks to pay a total of 112 million Hungarian forints – approximately €313,600 – including interest, according to reporting by Telex, one of Hungary’s leading independent news outlets.
The amount is highly unusual in the context of Hungarian media litigation. The award does not consist solely of compensation for emotional harm. The couple also sought the surrender of the financial benefit the publisher allegedly gained from publishing the disputed articles.
Mediaworks has appealed the ruling.
In a separate proceeding, the publisher of Pesti Srácok has already been ordered by a final judgment to pay 12 million forints in damages, a decision currently being challenged before Hungary’s Supreme Court.
The case began with an Elle magazine cover
In September 2023, Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter, who owns several restaurants in Budapest, and his husband, Dr. László Szegedi, appeared on the cover of the Hungarian edition of Elle magazine together with their young daughter.
Published under the slogan “Born From Love,” the issue aimed to challenge social attitudes and exclusionary norms that the magazine argued still shape public discourse in many places.
In the accompanying interview, the couple also spoke openly about anti-LGBTQ+ poster campaigns and shared criticism of Hungary’s healthcare system.
The cover generated considerable attention among readers and within the LGBTQ community. Shortly afterwards, a series of articles about the family began appearing in Mediaworks-owned publications, presenting their story from an entirely different perspective.
Among the outlets involved were Bors, Ripost, Metropol, and several regional newspapers.
According to the plaintiffs, the articles associated the family with surrogacy, child trafficking, and human trafficking. The lawsuit further alleged that photographs had been taken from the family’s private Instagram account and republished without consent.
According to Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter, the articles portrayed their daughter as a commodity while placing the family’s story alongside headlines about the exploitation and humiliation of women.
Their marriage was questioned in print
One issue raised during the proceedings concerned the language used by some publications when referring to the couple’s relationship.
Several articles placed the word “husband” in quotation marks when writing about Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter and Dr. László Szegedi.
The couple married in the United States and, according to Hlatky-Schlichter, their legal status leaves no room for ambiguity.
“We got married in the U.S., so that is our legal status even if same-sex marriage isn’t recognized in Hungary. You can’t use quotation marks to question the fact that we are husband and husband,” he said.
The family has lived in Sweden for the past three years.
Hlatky-Schlichter said they expected the Elle interview to attract criticism, which is why they did not immediately accept the magazine’s invitation.
They eventually agreed to participate because previous public appearances, including his TEDx talk, had received overwhelmingly positive reactions.
Through their story, they also hoped to offer support to other same-sex couples and families facing similar experiences.
Although Hlatky-Schlichter had encountered anti-LGBTQ rhetoric before, he believed the reporting surrounding his family had gone much further.
“We didn’t want to let it go. Not least because our lawyer told us that nearly all of our personal rights had been violated: the right to a good reputation, the right to honor, our privacy, our human dignity, and the right to our likeness.”
A lawsuit intended to have consequences
The couple believed that the relatively modest amounts typically awarded in press correction and privacy cases rarely serve as an effective deterrent for large media companies.
Mediaworks generated more than 57 billion forints in revenue during the relevant financial year.
According to the company’s 2025 financial report, provisions exceeded four billion forints.
Based on those figures, Hlatky-Schlichter and his husband concluded that previous compensation awards represented little financial risk for major publishers.
Their legal strategy therefore sought to address not only emotional harm but also the financial benefit allegedly generated by the infringing articles.
“We retained a professional commercial lawyer to represent us in this case and asked him to explore all the legal consequences of the violation of our personality rights in the lawsuit and, trusting in the Hungarian justice system, to draft a complaint that would finally have a deterrent effect,” said Hlatky-Schlichter.
In early 2024, the couple launched two separate lawsuits — one against Mediaworks and another against Pesti Srácok.
In the Mediaworks case, they requested compensation for emotional damages while also demanding the surrender of the profits allegedly generated by the disputed publications.
The amount claimed was supported by economic calculations based on the publisher’s financial data.
The court ultimately ordered Mediaworks to pay 112 million forints, or roughly €313,600, including interest.
If the ruling survives the appeals process, it would rank among the largest privacy-related awards ever granted in a Hungarian media case.
The court: starting a family is a private matter
During the proceedings, Mediaworks argued that its articles focused primarily on the legal and moral issues surrounding surrogacy.
According to the publisher, the pieces constituted opinion journalism about a broader social debate and therefore fell within the boundaries of protected expression that the couple should tolerate.
Hlatky-Schlichter rejected that argument, maintaining that neither he nor his husband had ever publicly discussed the circumstances surrounding the birth of their daughter or how they became parents.
He also pointed to examples in which Borsonline had reported positively on celebrities whose children were born through surrogacy, including Ricky Martin and Tímea Vajna.
The court ultimately sided with the couple.
Judges concluded that because the family had never publicly discussed surrogacy, the circumstances surrounding the creation of their family belonged entirely to their private lives.
According to the ruling, having children and starting a family in Hungary are matters of privacy rather than public interest.
The court also found that Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter and Dr. László Szegedi are not public figures in matters concerning their family life and therefore are not required to tolerate value judgments that exceed acceptable limits.
The judgment further held that the purpose of the disputed articles was to discredit the family.
The court also found Mediaworks CEO Erika Kálmán personally liable for the violations, citing the coordinated nature of the campaign among the reasons for the decision.
Mediaworks has appealed
The case had previously reached the Civil Division of the Budapest Court of Appeals, which returned it to the lower court so that amendments could be made to the complaint.
Following the renewed proceedings, the Budapest Regional Court once again awarded damages exceeding 100 million forints.
Hlatky-Schlichter said he hopes that if the decision eventually becomes final, it will have broader consequences for the Hungarian media landscape.
“It should not be possible to systematically humiliate and discredit people without consequences. With a fine in the range of 100 million forints, journalists might think twice about what they write,” he said.
Mediaworks has appealed the ruling.
Meanwhile, in the separate case involving Pesti Srácok, the publisher has already been ordered by a final judgment to pay 12 million forints, a decision that is currently being challenged before the Supreme Court.
The couple plans to use the compensation awarded to them — worth approximately €313,600 if the Mediaworks ruling is ultimately upheld — to support their young daughter’s future education abroad.