On January 12, the Court of Justice of the European Union passed a judgment in response to the questions asked by the Department of Administrative Cases of the Senate in two cases – in disputes of the applicants SIA "DOBELES HES" and SIA "GM" with the Public Utilities Commission. By the decision of the Public Utilities Commission (hereinafter – the Regulator), the applicants were refused compensation for the losses for the sale of the produced electricity.

In the opinion of the applicants, their losses occurred due to the fact that the Regulator had not set the tariff for the sale of electricity in the period from March 1, 2006 to April 1, 2010. The losses are made up of the difference between the price paid to the applicants by the public trader and the price at which the public trader would have to purchase electricity if the average selling tariff for electricity had been set during the indicated period.

In the cases under consideration, the applicants are actually asking for compensation for the part of the support that was not received, but was provided for by law, and not for any other losses. The amount of damage requested by the applicants corresponds to the amount of money that the applicants would have received, but did not receive, by selling their surplus of electricity produced at the respective time to the public trader at a price that corresponds to twice the average tariff for electricity sales.

Having started to examine the present cases in the cassation proceedings, the Senate had doubts about the interpretation of European Union law, so the Senate stayed the proceedings in the cases and asked preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has published a press release on the pronounced judgment.

The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union has entered into force. This will be the basis for the Senate to renew the cassation proceedings in the pending cases.

The case No SKA-14/2023 (A43007011) and the case No SKA-49/2023 (A43010811)

 

Information prepared by Baiba Kataja, Press Secretary of the Supreme Court

Tel.: +371 67020396; e-mail: baiba.kataja@at.gov.lv