How is the competition in the gas sector. Agcm report
Focus on competition in the gas distribution sector. Extract from the Antitrust Annual Report
Extract from the Antitrust Annual Report
The management of local distribution networks for the delivery of gas to end users, a natural monopoly subject to regulation, is a strategic activity for widespread access to the use of gas and for the definition of competitive conditions in the market for sales to customers. final.
Following the liberalization of the sector, the obligation to entrust management by tender was introduced and the merger of the thousands of existing municipal concessions into 177 area concessions (so-called “Atem”).
In each area, the outgoing operators, current owners of the individual municipal concessions, hold important competitive advantages of a financial and informative nature, which can be used in the tender, which are all the more significant the greater the extent of the managed network.
Also in 2019 the Authority took part in the very demanding challenge of contributing to the correct definition and implementation of the Atem tenders, both with the antitrust and advocacy tools, with the aim of guaranteeing maximum participation in bids.
In the control of merger operations, it is verified that the proposed operation does not bring too many municipal concessionaires belonging to a single Atem back under the same control: otherwise, by cumulatively making use of the advantageous position of the various outgoing managers, the buyer could constitute a dominant position on the market for the future Atem tender.
This verification was carried out on the occasion of the acquisition of some distribution activities of the Hera group by the company Ascopiave SpA, with reference to the future tender for Atem Padova 1 (see infra case C12258) .
The Authority also intervened with a proceeding, concluded in January 2020, for abuse of a dominant position against the outgoing managers of the Atem Genova (see case A527 infra) who were accused of not having made available to the Municipality ( contracting authority of the Atem tender) information deemed indispensable by the same to be able to announce the tender.
Following the commitments proposed and made mandatory by the Authority, the proceeding was concluded without ascertaining the infringement pursuant to art. 14-ter of the l. 287/1990.
The serious delay accumulated by the planned program for the conduct of the tenders, which have been very few to date, prevents the sector and users from enjoying the benefits of competition between operators, de facto extending the existing local monopoly management, generally entrusted without procedure competitive.
For this reason, the Authority, in 2019, intervened with a report pursuant to art. 21 of the l. 287/1990 (AS1633), inviting the Ministry of Economic Development to activate its substitute power as per decree law 21 June 2013, n. 69 (Urgent provisions for the relaunch of the economy) and to proceed therefore, in place of the contracting stations, to start tenders for the assignment of the natural gas distribution service in all territorial areas.
The Authority also intervened by highlighting some critical issues of the current legislation. In particular, it intervened with a report pursuant to art. 21 of the l. 287/1990 ( AS1625 ), inviting the Ministry of Economic Development to modify one of the variables (the so-called VIR of reference) used for the definition of an item of the economic offer, in order to eliminate the uncertainties on the actual outlay connected to the offer submitted, implying negative effects on participation in the public tender procedure.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/concorrenza-nel-settore-gas-report-agcm/ on Wed, 21 Oct 2020 08:47:38 +0000.