The Bundeskartellamt has discontinued its abuse proceedings against Elektrizitätswerk Wesertal GmbH, Hameln (a fully-owned subsidiary of Fortum Energie GmbH), which had been initiated on suspicion of its charging abusively excessive fees for network use, after the company had committed itself to drastically reducing its fees for network use as from 1 May 2002.

In late January 2002 proceedings were initiated against ten electricity network operators, among them Wesertal GmbH, on suspicion of them charging abusively excessive fees for network use. Investigations concentrated on the sector of load profiled customers at the low and medium voltage levels. Ulf Böge, President of the Bundeskartellamt, expressed his satisfaction about the fact that Elektrizitätswerk Wesertal GmbH had reduced its fees in the course of the proceedings by up to 20 per cent. Based on a national comparison this dispelled the suspicion of abusively excessive fees for network use. If the suspicion were to arise in future that the overall German price level was excessive, a further evaluation would become necessary. The Bundeskartellamt’s investigations had shown that in comparison with the fees charged by the comparative companies RWE and EnBW, Elektrizitätswerk Wesertal GmbH’s fees for network use which non-load profiled customers at the low-voltage sector (households and small businesses) had to pay were not abusively excessive.

According to the President of the Bundeskartellamt proceedings against the other network operators are continuing. In four cases investigations had been made difficult by the network operators’ refusal to submit the basis for their calculations as requested by the Bundeskartellamt. They had filed an appeal against the Bundeskartellamt’s decision requesting information at the Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf. According to Böge this tactic illustrates the importance of embodying the immediate enforceability of cartel authorities’ decisions in law as a general rule in order to be able to address promptly and effectively abusive conduct in the network-based energy sector. It was urgently required to introduce this instrument in order to allow competitive impulses provided by newcomers to have an immediate effect in the market.