A group of Hungarian friends traveled to Berlin in May 2019 to watch the city’s soccer team, Hertha BSC, play their next league match. The match had an exciting Hungarian connection, as it was the farewell match for Hertha’s Hungarian coach, Pál Dárdai.

One of the four people attending the match was Márton Nobilis, who was an influential, high-ranking official at the Ministry of Agriculture at the time.

The trip six years ago is significant now because one of Nobilis’s traveling companions has since become a defendant in a criminal case involving the Ministry of Agriculture. The case concerns two law firms that received 2.2 billion forints (EUR 5.7 million) from a company belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture between March and June 2019 without performing any significant work in return, according to the indictment.

Nobilis’s traveling companion was the head of one of the law firms involved in the case. His firm paid for the plane tickets for the three-day trip and he also arranged for them to receive complimentary tickets to the match from Dárdai himself. The other two companions were presumably lawyers who participated in activities carried out by the law firms that the prosecutor’s office considered to be fake work.

The trip to Germany took place in the spring of 2019, a few weeks after law firms received the first part of their fees, amounting to several hundred million forints, from the Ministry of Agriculture.

All of this came to light during the June session of the criminal trial, which has been ongoing for years. Direkt36 has been following the trial for a long time and has reported on it previously.

Márton Nobilis is not a defendant in this complex case, but the judge’s questions revealed that he or she too is interested in what Nobilis may have seen during the case and what kind of relationship he has with the defendants.

Nobilis’ role is also interesting because he has long been active in Fidesz circles. His father, Kristóf Nobilis, a billionaire businessman, was also known for his conservative views and his connections to Fidesz. Since the change of government in 2010, his son Márton has held various positions in several ministries. János Lázár, for example, appointed him to be responsible for state advertising spending in 2014. After various detours, he became chief of staff at the Ministry of Agriculture in 2018, and according to a source familiar with the ministry’s affairs, he had much more power than his position would suggest.

In response to our questions about his visit to the match in Berlin, Márton Nobilis wrote that he and his three colleagues mentioned in the court proceedings had attended soccer matches on several occasions both at home and abroad. He also emphasized that these occasions were always about soccer and that no business or political discussions took place. The head of the law firm involved in the criminal case, who accompanied Nobilis to Berlin, did not respond to our questions. In his testimony in court, he stated that the trip to Berlin was private and had nothing to do with the payments made to the law firms.

In the ongoing criminal trial, Márton Nobilis’ father, Kristóf Nobilis, has also been charged. According to the allegations, some of the money unlawfully paid to the law firms ended up in an offshore company linked to Kristóf Nobilis.

According to Direkt36’s research, there were other connections between Kristóf Nobilis and the Ministry of Agriculture, where Márton Nobilis held an important position. According to data from the government tender portal, between 2018 and 2022, Kristóf Nobilis’s companies were awarded nearly 730 million forints (EUR 1,9 million) in tenders administered by the Ministry of Agriculture.

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Márton Nobilis wrote about his father’s companies’ grant applications: he is not aware of his father having applied for any grants during the period in question. He added that as chief of staff at the Ministry of Agriculture, he had no authority to “evaluate any grant applications or financial decisions.” Direkt36 also found no evidence that Márton Nobilis had any influence on the evaluation of these tenders.

Kristóf Nobilis wrote to Direkt36 that his companies, which have been operating for more than 20 years, have successfully applied for tenders under several different governments. When asked whether his son, who previously worked as chief of staff at the Ministry of Agriculture, played any role in the successful bids, he wrote that he rejects any “insinuations and unfounded allegations” concerning his son.

Nobilis Ágoston, Kristóf Nobilis’s other son and managing director of one of the family companies, responded to our inquiry by saying that they had received significantly less support than we had calculated based on the state tender website in the tender program managed by the Ministry of Agriculture. However, he did not disclose the exact amount even after we repeated our request. The Ministry of Agriculture did not respond to our questions.

They went for the billions

The criminal case involving the Ministry of Agriculture has been heard by the Székesfehérvár Court since spring 2023, and the trial is still ongoing. The essence of the case is that two law firms – Őszy Law Firm and KPZ Law Firm – signed a contract worth a total of HUF 2.2 billion (EUR 5.7 million) in 2019 with the Ministry of Agriculture’s shell company, Nemzeti Kataszteri Program Nkft., which was in the process of being liquidated.

According to the indictment, the agencies did not perform any meaningful work in exchange for this sum, and the materials submitted as fulfillment were of no real use. According to the National Bureau of Investigation (NNI), the tables and graphs in the submitted documents could have been produced in a few minutes with the raw data at hand. The NNI also drew attention to the large font size, conspicuously large line spacing, and spelling errors in the documents.

There are nearly a dozen defendants in the case, but Márton Nobilis is not among them. However, the court appears to be interested in whether Nobilis may have played any role in the case and is seeking to clarify this with the help of witnesses.

Chief of Staff

Márton Nobilis began his career in 2009 at Prestige Média Kft., a media company owned by Attila Várhegyi, an influential figure behind the scenes at Fidesz who was convicted of embezzlement. This company had previously worked for the local government of Hódmezővásárhely when János Lázár was still mayor of the town.

He remained in contact with Lázár afterwards. In 2014, when Lázár was still head of the Prime Minister’s Office, he appointed Nobilis to head the National Communications Office (NKH), which fell under his portfolio. This office handled advertising tenders for state-owned companies: if a state-owned company wanted to advertise, the NKH conducted the tender and decided who would be awarded the contract. Nobilis then moved to MTVA (Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund), and between 2016 and 2018, he held leading positions at several institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Human Resources (Emmi).

From there, he moved to the Ministry of Agriculture in 2018, where he worked as chief of staff to Minister István Nagy until 2022, and then served as state secretary responsible for the food industry and trade policy until the end of 2024. (After leaving the Ministry of Agriculture, he has been a member of the board of directors of the state-owned Nemzeti Vízművek Zrt. (National Waterworks Ltd.) since the summer of 2025, and is also a member of one of the committees of the Hungarian Football Association.

According to a source familiar with the affairs of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nobilis had considerable influence as chief of staff at the ministry and had a significant impact on many areas of the ministry’s work.

During the court proceedings at the Court of Székesfehérvár, it emerged that Márton Nobilis, due to his former position, may have substantive information about the payments made to law firms.

This was also mentioned by János Nagy, the main defendant in the case, who was deputy state secretary responsible for land affairs at the time of the events under investigation. Nagy, who is only a namesake of the minister in charge of agriculture, is accused of deciding to conclude the attorney contracts. According to the indictment, he was motivated by the desire to obtain the billions remaining in the account of the ministry’s defunct company before they were returned to the budget.

At one of the hearings in February 2025, János Nagy testified that Márton Nobilis, the chief of staff, instructed him on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture which law firms to contract and for how much.

In February of this year, the court questioned Minister of Agriculture István Nagy, who appeared as a witness, at length about this. The minister denied that he had decided on the contracts, and said of Márton Nobilis’s role: “I can’t say anything about that, because what is said in my name, without my authority, I have no (control over – the editor)”

The court asked the minister whether Márton Nobilis had the opportunity and authority to convey false information on behalf of the head of the ministry. István Nagy replied that he did not know, but did not assume so. The minister also said that he did not have time to review all the documents submitted to him, so in some cases, if a document had already been signed by several people, including his chief of staff, he would countersign it.

Father and son

Márton Nobilis is also an interesting figure because his father, Hungarian billionaire Kristóf Nobilis, is also sitting in the dock.

The older Nobilis has been charged with budget fraud by the public prosecutor’s office. According to the indictment, law firms transferred hundreds of millions of forints from the billions flowing into them to a Panamanian offshore company linked to the businessman. After that, according to the indictment, Kristóf Nobilis did not pay taxes.

In his testimony before the court in January this year, Kristóf Nobilis defended himself by saying that the money transfer was actually the repayment of an old loan. The billionaire argued that he was innocent because loan repayments are tax-free, so he believed he did not have to pay any tax on the transaction. Márton Nobilis was also summoned as a witness in the case, but he refused to testify, citing his family relationship with his father.

Kristóf Nobilis is a billionaire entrepreneur who has appeared several times on the list of the richest Hungarians in recent years. In 2016, his fortune was estimated at HUF 6.8 billion (EUR 17,5 million) by the publication The 100 Richest Hungarians. He started out in the banking sector but became a major player in the real estate market. He also owned a marina on Lake Balaton and founded his own brand of pálinka.

In 2005, Nobilis purchased the publisher of the Index news portal, which he soon sold to Zoltán Spéder, a banker with close ties to the Fidesz party. Kristóf Nobilis, together with Spéder and historian Mária Schmidt, who is close to the prime minister, was also a long-time owner of Budapest Real Estate Plc, SZIT/REIT (BIF) Nyrt., a leading company in the capital’s real estate market. However, he sold his stake in BIF in 2017.

Although not the subject of the court case, there are other links between Kristóf Nobilis and the Ministry of Agriculture besides the money paid to law firms.

According to data available on the government tender portal palyazat.gov.hu, Kristóf Nobilis’s companies have been awarded large sums of money on several occasions under the Rural Development Program. From 2018, this program was managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, which means that the ministry played an important role in the implementation of these tenders. According to Direkt36’s summary, Kristóf Nobilis’s two companies were awarded hundreds of millions of forints under such grant programs after 2018, i.e., after Márton Nobilis became the ministry’s chief of staff.

One of the companies was Csoroszlya-Farm Kft., which is involved in organic farming and in which Kristóf Nobilis had and still has a stake when the subsidies were awarded. Márton’s brother, Ágoston Nobilis, is also an owner of the company and has been the managing director of Csoroszlya-Farm since 2016. Between 2018 and 2022, this company was awarded 697 million forints (EUR 1,8 million) in grants from the Rural Development Program, which is co-financed by the EU and the Hungarian state. According to public databases, these funds were awarded to the company for investments in the milling industry, digital conversion, and frost damage prevention, among other things.

Ágoston Nobilis wrote to Direkt36 that Csoroszlya Farm Kft. has been “operating for 25 years” and has been engaged in organic farming under his management for ten years, “adhering to a strict set of rules, combined with small-scale processing and variety research.” He added that “since 2004, the farm has been receiving EU subsidies on the same terms as all similar agricultural enterprises, with pre-financing and a regulated application framework, regardless of the political affiliation of the government in power.”

He also stated that they had received “significantly lower amounts” of support from the Rural Development Program than what was shown in our summary based on data found on the government’s tender website. We shared the data from this government database with him and asked him to clarify the amount, but he did not do so despite our repeated requests.

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According to public tender data, another Nobilis company that received support was Spirits-68 Kft., which is involved in pálinka distillation and has also been owned by Ágoston Nobilis since 2013. Kristóf Nobilis also had a stake in the company from its founding in 1999 until 2022. This company was awarded 32 million forints (EUR 82 695) under the same program for the technological renewal of its pálinka distillery.

Lawyers among themselves

Márton Nobilis’ name came up in the trial in Székesfehérvár not only because his father received money paid to law firms. It also came to light that he had a good relationship with one of the lawyers accused in the case, an employee of the Őszy Law Firm.

During the summer trial, the accused lawyer told the judge that he knew Márton Nobilis not only through his work at the Ministry of Agriculture. “We used to play soccer together. Not just the two of us, but on the same team,” said the lawyer, referring to the fact that he and Nobilis were members of the same group of friends.

The lawyer then provided details in response to the judge’s questions about the trip to Berlin in May 2019, for which he had arranged the flight tickets and match tickets for Nobilis and their two other travel companions. The lawyer claimed that the trip was strictly private and had nothing to do with payments to law firms. The judge asked about the trip to Berlin because the invoice for the trip, which was paid by the Őszy Law Firm, was included in the investigation files.

While asking questions about the details of the trip, the judge named the two men who traveled to Berlin with Márton Nobilis and the lawyer from the Őszy Law Firm. The judge did not provide any further information to help identify them, but based on what was said in previous hearings, it is possible to deduce who they might be.

Based on this, these two men are also lawyers who, through their office, were in contact with the law firms that received money from the Ministry of Agriculture. Since they are not public figures, we will refer to them only by their initials, V. A. and H. Á.

A. also appeared as a witness in the case before the court. In his testimony, he stated that he works as a lawyer and that his office had contracted with both the Őszy Law Firm and the KPZ Law Firm to assist them in performing the tasks that are the subject of the criminal case. V. also stated that he and his colleague, H. Á., had done a lot of work in the office to complete the task and had received approximately HUF 50 million (EUR 129 212) in return.

V. said that he had known the accused lawyer from the Őszy Law Firm for a very long time, more than ten years as far as he could remember, and that they had attended church together.

We contacted V. and his colleague, H., about the case. Both said that they had previously attended quite a few sporting events as spectators, but they consider these to be private events and therefore do not want to talk about them. Neither of them confirmed that they had traveled to Berlin in the spring of 2019 in the company of Márton Nobilis and the lawyer from the Őszy Law Firm.

We used Opten’s service to search for company registration data.

Illustration: Somogyi Péter (szarvas) / Telex