The Federal Cartel Office is planning investigations against energy suppliers in connection with the abuse control for price brakes. “It is anything but trivial to find the black sheep among thousands of suppliers with a wide variety of tariffs,” said Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt of the “Rheinische Post”. “But we’re making very good progress,” assured Mundt.
According to the authority, the Cartel Office has received “a clear four-digit number” of complaints from citizens about energy prices since the end of 2022.
“For this new task, we immediately set up a department with experienced employees at the beginning of January,” said Mundt. “We have already started to implement the ban on abuse.” In particular, “the planning of concrete investigative measures” is already “well advanced”, explained the President of the Cartel Office.
The price brakes were introduced because of the massive rise in prices for energy products – they have been in effect since March and retrospectively for January and February. The price cap for electricity is 40 cents per kilowatt hour and for gas it is 12 cents per kilowatt hour. However, according to the Verivox portal, the vast majority of tariffs in the basic energy supply are currently more expensive than the price brake. (AFP)
