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The Competition Authority refuses to have open court proceedings

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At the Annual General Meeting of shareholders of AS Tallinna Vesi on 22nd May
2012, the shareholders of the Company requested that the Company would publish
all materials related to its ongoing court dispute with the Competition
Authority. In the interests of openness and transparency, the Company had
already applied for open court proceedings and, on 15th February 2012 the
courts accepted this request. for open court proceedings. As a result of these
factors, ASTV agreed to publish all relevant materials on its website, as it
believed this information was in the public interest, the interests of
shareholder democracy, and customer awareness. 

On the 31st of May 2012, Tallinn District Court accepted the application
submitted to the Administrative Court by the Competition Authority on the 30th
of April 2012 (the application was forwarded by the Administrative Court to
Tallinn District Court for resolving) for the judicial proceedings to be
declared closed- the relevant court ruling was forwarded to AS Tallinna Vesi on
the 1st of June, 2012. As a consequence, the Company would like to inform all
its shareholders and the general public that, at this point in time, the
Company is prohibited from publishing any materials that are related to the
court dispute. The Company fully believes that proceedings should be open,
professional and fully transparent, and therefore will re-apply to the courts
for open court proceedings. 

The CEO of AS Tallinna Vesi, Ian Plenderleith, said that he finds the
Competition Authority’s application for closed court proceedings to be the
absolute opposite of the conduct expected from an economic regulator. “Utility
companies that are generally natural monopolies should be completely
transparent in their dealings with customers. Open communication and
transparency allow the public to better understand the content of the service
being delivered for the tariff being paid. The aim of a public court proceeding
is, first and foremost, to ensure that customers have the opportunity to
understand all the important principles relevant to the tariff application. It
is for this reason that AS Tallinna Vesi has applied for open court
proceedings, and was willing to open all aspects of its business and financial
performance to public scrutiny, we have nothing to hide,” explained
Plenderleith. 

“By applying for closed court proceedings, the question clearly arises as to
whether the Competition Authority believes that the same principles of
transparency should apply to itself and its own recommended methodologies. As
the Competition Authority acts in the interests of the public, then a closed
court proceeding is completely inappropriate for a state authority. By taking
this action, the Competition Authority, which has the responsibility for
setting tariffs for the utilities sector which make up such a significant part
of household income, infers that it has something to conceal from the public’s
attention.  A regulator should not be using alleged “business secrets” to
protect its ways of working and methodologies. In reality, what the Competition
Authority is now stating is that there can never be any public discussion of
how it assesses and calculates prices, as this is its own business secret.
Furthermore, the Competition Authority continues to insist that it is only
regulating tariffs in accordance with the PWSSA, which is public law, yet is
not prepared to inform the public of how it carries out this public law task,”
added Plenderleith. 

AS Tallinna Vesi has submitted to the Administrative Court of Tallinn two
complaints against the Competition Authority, contesting the Competition
Authority´s 2nd of May 2011 decision not to approve the Company´s 2011 tariff
application as well as the Competition Authority´s 10th of October 2011
injunction that obliged the Company to decrease its valid tariffs by 1/3.  On
the 6th of February 2012, the Administrative Court of Tallinn decided to join
the before mentioned cases into one proceeding. The taking place or the date of
the court hearing has yet not been decided. 


         Mariliis Mia Topp
         Head of Communications
         AS Tallinna Vesi
         62 62 275
         [email protected]