Rome, June 13th – With penalties totaling 14 million and 530,000 euro, the Antitrust Authority concluded four cases – launched in July 2015 on the basis of numerous reports of individual consumers and different consumer – against five big power: Acea, Edison, Eni, Enel Energia and Enel Electric Service. The measures relate to billing and repeated requests for payment mechanisms do not correspond to actual consumption bills, as well as’ the obstacles to the return of repayments. During the procedure, the Aeegsi (Authority ‘for electricity, gas and water system) has made a detailed opinion, within the framework of the cooperation provided by the Memorandum of Understanding between the two Authorities’, which allowed all ‘Antitrust and identifying distinct aggressive practices. In the activities’ inspection, the Authority ‘Competition and the Market has run’ also enlisted the cooperation of the Special Unit of the Financial Police Antitrust. At the conclusion of its investigation, the AGCM has established that the five companies’ have come into being a first aggressive commercial practice and that means’ poor management of the requests and communications to end customers who complained about the billing of electricity ‘consumption or natural gas divergent from the actual measurements. This was due to deficiencies in the billing process, malfunctions of computer systems and the non-suspension of the attivita ‘of recovery (reminders, formal notice and detachment, sometimes without notice) waiting for a clear answer, precise and complete. In the case of large-value adjustments, moreover, companies had not taken measures to mitigate the impact of the bill, without informing the users about the possibility ‘to pay in installments will’ on terms more ‘long payment. According to the Antitrust, such conduct has violated the right of the client to receive appropriate and effective support and assessment of their consumption, before proceeding to the payment of the disputed invoices and, therefore, constitute aggressive commercial practices. This ‘as the looming threat of the initiation or the continuation of collection procedures is, in the opinion of the Authority’, undue influence of consumer choices about the payment of unverified consumption and the submission of applications and communications . A second malpractice, ascertained from the inquiry concerns the failure or delay repayment of amounts due to various reasons to end customers. The Authority ‘took the view that the modalities’ information and procedures adopted by the five operators did not allow consumers to be fully and promptly as the excess amount paid for the supply of electricity or gas. For the two companies ‘Enel group, finally,’ it was ascertained a third malpractice: this consisted in charging of default interest for late payment, even if the bills received late or not delivered, and in the presence of a complaint in this sense. In view of the specificity ‘of each pipeline and the size of the observed phenomena, the Antitrust Authority imposed, respectively, the following sanctions: ACEA, 3.6 million euro; Edison, € 1,725,000; Eni, € 3,600,000; Enel Energia: EUR 2.985 million; Enel Electric Service, 2.62 million euro. During the proceedings, the operators have proposed changes to the procedures used so far in handling the requests and complaints from consumers, and also to improve billing processes. In view of these elements, the penalties were reduced in proportion to the degree of relevance and effective implementation of such innovations. .
( 13 June 2016 )
other news
No comments:
Post a Comment