FOR A EUR 1 MILLION EC FINE, OPCOM considers to sue ANRE

OPCOM considers the possibility to sue ANRE (the energy market regulator), after having been fined by the European Commission (EC) for anti-competitive practices, stated, yesterday, the management representatives of our energy market operator.

The European Commission (EC) made an announcement last week, that it fined by EUR 1 million the OPCOM SA company (administered integrally by Transelectrica) for abusing its dominant position on the Romanian market for facilitating the energy transactions on the spot market, breaching the EU regulations in terms of competitiveness. The Commission discovered that, OPCOM has been discriminating for five years the electrical energy traders outside Romania, with the head office in the EU. According to the EC press release, OPCOM required the members of the energy spot market during 2008 and 2013 to register for VAT purposes in Romania, rejecting the traders that were already registered for VAT purposes in other EU member states.

Victor Ionescu, the managing director of OPCOM, stated yesterday: "We consider the decision of the European Union to be ill-suited and we analyse at the corporate level, to contest the fine in court. We analyse also the possibility to sue ANRE".

Mr. Ionescu explained that the legislation in terms of the energy transactions, for which ANRE is responsible, has not been synchronized with the tax legislation related to the registration for VAT purposes and emphasized the fact that there is no difference in our country between "traders" (n.r. those who are said to have been discriminated) and suppliers, as it happens on other European markets.

This problem called down by the EC related to the energy transactions disappeared on 1 September 2013, when the reverse charge has been adopted.