ENERGY: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY - ENEL GROUP MUST PROVIDE NEW OPERATORS IN THE PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION FIELD WITH ALL DATA REQUIRED FOR THE TIMELY AND EFFECTIVE SWITCHING AND MANAGEMENT OF CUSTOMERS. ENEL DISTRIBUZIONE OFFERS PRE-CHECKS OF SWITCHING DATA TO ALL VENDORS

Antitrust Authority accepts binding commitments by Enel, Enel Distribuzione and Enel Servizio Elettrico

On December 10^th, 2009, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato accepted binding commitments by ENEL SpA, ENEL Servizio Elettrico SpA and ENEL Distribuzione SpA. Proceedings had been launched in October 2008 to investigate possible abuses of dominant position that restrain competition in the retail sale of electric power to non-residential customers. The commitments allowed the investigation to come to a conclusion without establishing any violations or penalties, having eliminated the competition-related concerns that triggered the procedure. The Antitrust Authority considers the binding measures sufficient to eliminate the competitive restrictions that derive from the provision of incomplete or erroneous data and the delayed transfer of data and updates to personal data protection operators outside of the ENEL group, the subjects of the abuse of dominant position alleged at the outset of the investigation.

The pre-check instrument proposed by ENEL Distribuzione, furthermore, provides new operators with an autonomous method for controlling, in advance, the quality of personal data provided by outgoing operators from the ENEL group (including ENEL Energia), thus preventing them from further opportunism in the supply of personal data to incoming operators. ENEL Servizio Elettrico and ENEL Distribuzione hold a monopoly on the essential information required by these traders and newly-contracted personal data protection operators in particular. The Antitrust Authority was concerned that these monopolists could manipulate the quality of the information in order to diminish the effective capacity of the traders, resulting in their marginalization and reducing the level of competition in the retail electric power markets for non-residential sales. Incomplete or erroneous information would in fact have a particularly strong impact on incoming operators in personal data protection services, which are critically dependent on the quality of the data received from outgoing operators and the communications the distributor must engage in with precision and without major unjustified increases in service-related expenses.

The pre-check instrument is available through the ENEL Distribuzione web-portal, which offers personal data protection operators and retail electric power sellers a means for checking various types of information in advance, such as switching data (POD code, which is needed for unambiguous identification of power sampling points, tax code / VAT number). This allows them to confirm that the data in hand corresponds with the information stored in the ENEL Distribuzione data bank, and if the outcome is positive they receive access to additional technical data. If the outcome is negative, alternatively, and depending on the specific circumstances, the trader is provided with the tax code for the given POD from ENEL Distribuzione's own data bank. There is also a procedure for recovering the POD for a given sampling point by entering identification information about the customer and the sampling point.

According to the Antitrust Authority, these commitments are sufficient to prevent competitive restrictions in the retail electric power market for non-residential customers, and in fact contribute to the promotion of competition in these markets.