Second Spanish utility fined over competition breaches

Spain's National Competition Commission, the Comisión Nacional de la Competencia (CNC), has fined Endesa Energia €5,475,000 for anti-competitive practices in the electricity market.

CNC has already fined Iberdrola over €10 million this year for similar breaches of the Competition Act. Both penalties relate to customer transfers during the opening of the Spanish electricity market in 2009 and 2010.

CNC discovered that Endesa had transferred customers to the open market without their express consent. The transfer came during the de-regulation of the Spanish electricity market when customers should have been subject to safeguards that prevented vertically integrated companies from abusing their customer contacts. In particular, they could not use that relationship to try to make customers stay with them.

According to lawyers SJ Berwin, the CNC found that Endesa’s conduct, which affected over 300,000 customers, distorted competition and was capable of affecting the public interest.