Bucharest Court of Appeal rules the Romanian state must pay EUR 66m compensation to GDF Suez

The National Regulatory Authority for Energy (ANRE) lost the lawsuit filed by GDF Suez gas distributor in the Court of Appeal. The judges ruled in favour of forcing the Romanian state to pay the distribution company damages of EUR 66 million, HotNews.ro reports.

ANRE President, Niculae Havrilet (photo) , says GDF Suez asked in court, in September 2012, for payment of unrecovered costs during 2008-2011.

Havrilet believes ANRE will win the appeal given that GDF has recovered much of the amount of RON 300 million. “Since 2012, ANRE acknowledged debts and gave them the right to recover them gradually,” said Havrilet. Basically, the recovery was made by the regulated prices to the consumer. According to the ANRE president, they have fully recovered the costs from industrial consumers until December 31, 2014 and from household consumers the amounts are to be recovered by 2018.

“Normally, they should have withdrawn from the lawsuit, but they did not,” said Havrilet. The court only admitted the existence of damage. ANRE is in a similar lawsuit with E.ON, and the court is to rule in this file involving a loss amounting to around RON 300 million.

GDF Suez supply natural gas to the southern half of the country. In March 2011, GDF Suez and E.ON, suppliers to the northern half of the country, owners of the former Distrigaz Nord, requested ANRE – the price regulatory authority for gas supplied to household consumers – to increase prices because costs as they cannot cope with the acquisition costs. The Authority ignored the requests due to social reasons, GDF Suez being forced to go to court.

GDF Suez sued the ANRE when it set the gas prices supplied to the household consumers below the company’s acquisition costs, which led to losses for the French gas company.