The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) is once again putting the spotlight on ENDESA, this time due to an alleged breach of contracting requirements and customer empowerment.
The infringement considered by the CNMC is related to article 66.4 of Law 24/2013, of 26 December, on the Electricity Sector, which refers to minor infringements, fined up to 600,000 euros for the commission of one of them. Specifically, article 66.4 of the Electricity Sector Act refers to the infringement for: ‘Failure by marketers to comply with the requirements for contracting and empowerment with customers’.
This is not the first time that ENDESA would be sanctioned for committing this infringement, being in 2019 already fined 40,000 euros for the same reason, and with other fines of 150,000 euros to ENDESA Energía and ENDESA Energía XXI for formalising an electricity supply contract in the free market to a consumer without their consent. Later that same year, ENDESA Energía again received a fine of 260,000 euros for not being able to accredit the express consent of 17 customers to change company, in addition to having changed company to a private individual without their consent.
A year later, in 2020, ENDESA Energía again received a fine of 300,000 euros for three other serious infringements provided for in article 65.23 of the Electricity Sector Act, as a result of repeated non-compliance with the requirements established for the formalisation of electricity contracts, as well as the conditions for contracting and empowerment of customers. This investigation was carried out by the CNMC as a result of a complaint from a private individual who warned of a change of supplier without his consent in three inherited homes when he realised the increase in the amounts of the bills when the company switched him from the regulated market to the free market, as well as changes in the applicable tariff, power and voltage of the supplies.
The latest sanctioning case against ENDESA that we are dealing with now, related to alleged malpractice by the company in contracting, is still being processed and is specifically due to failure to comply with ‘the obligation to maintain and ensure the correct functioning of a service to deal with complaints, claims, incidents in relation to the service contracted or offered, requests for information on aspects related to contracting and supply or communications’, an offence classified as serious and whose fine can vary from 600,000 euros to six million euros.
Following the approval of Royal Decree-Law 23/2021 of 26 October, electricity and natural gas marketers must report, one month in advance, any changes to contracts and send the CNMC ‘transparent, comparable, adequate and updated information on the prices applicable to all offers available at any given time’. Among the requirements that the law imposes on electricity companies is the provision of a free telephone service for their users, as well as the obligation to provide the information required by their customers on the contracting and supply conditions subscribed to. In order to avoid malpractice in the sector, the government wants to approve a Royal Decree regulating the conditions of supply and contracting of electricity and thus provide greater consumer protection.