AGCM

Energy: Antitrust and Authority sign a new agreement for the protection of consumers

Strengthened co-operation and collaboration in the field of unfair commercial practices

Rome, 29 October 2014 – The Presidents of the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) Giovanni Pitruzzella and of the Authority for Electricity, Gas and the Water Supply (AEGWS) Guido Bortoni have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen consumer protection, with particular reference to unfair commercial practices in the regulated sectors[1].

Framework Protocol of 2012 is thereby integrated, which identifies tools, procedures and deadlines to ensure an effective co-ordination between the two Authorities and to give timely and practical information of the new legislation on consumer protection introduced by the Legislative Decree of 21 February 2014, number 21 which implements Directive 2011/83/EU.

The co-operation between the two Authorities, through the Memorandum of Understanding, in particular is achieved through the mutual reporting, in proceedings of direct competence, of cases of unfair commercial practices and/or violations of laws and/or the regulation in the electricity, gas and water supply services.

The agreement also includes a set of actions such as the establishment of a permanent working group that will oversee and monitor the implementation of the Memorandum; the exchange of documents, data and information on the proceedings; joint interventions for case studies that require specific attention; the setting of specific terms of 30 and 45 days (in case of submission of substitute commitments to sanctions) in order to give the opinion required in this procedure.

Other forms of collaboration will take place with the communication by the Energy Authority to the Antitrust of the unsuccessful attempts at conciliation of disputes between businesses and consumers (with the transmission of the dossier for its evaluation) in the case of contracts in the electricity and gas sectors concluded in breach of the provisions of the Code of Commercial conduct: the Energy Authority in these cases maintains and implements an adjustment aimed at the voluntary conciliation of the problem, even through the use of recovery procedures or switching back[2].

The full version of the Memorandum can be seen on the websites www.agcm.it and www.autorita.energia.it.

[1] The unfair commercial practices are defined in Chapter II of Title III of Part II of the Legislative Decree of 6 September 2005; number 206; it is the ICA that has the competence to sanction under Article 27 of the same Legislative Decree.

[2] The recovery procedures introduced in 2012 by the Energy Authority allow the client to return to the previous vendor – compared to the one apparently “not wanted” – in a simplified manner. This procedure, also called switching back, has a purpose other than protection and is not overlapping with the provisions of the Consumer Code (such as judicial protection or recourse to the Antitrust which consumers are still free to join).