INTEGRITES contributed to establishing the Supreme Court’s practice on consumers’ rights to change the electricity supplier

Domestic Litigation team at INTEGRITES successfully protected rights of Metro Cash & Carry Ukraine LLC in a dispute with its former energy supplier in the Commercial Cassation Court as a part of the Supreme Court. The opponent filed a claim against one of the Metro Cash & Carry Ukraine chain stores demanding for the store to be fined for changing the electricity supplier.

The dispute matters both to the firm’s client and other electric power consumers. On the one hand, the Law of Ukraine on the Electricity Market and the Directive 2009/72/EC on the common rules for the internal market in electricity are in effect in Ukraine. They provide consumers with an opportunity to voluntarily choose and change the electric power supplier. At the same time, controversial norms in by-laws lead to the situation when many suppliers attempt to collect fines from their former customers.

For INTEGRITES, this is the second case regarding the outcome of the client’s decision to change the energy supplier. At the same time, this is the first case not only for the client but for Ukraine as well when the Supreme Court resolved the case and established a clear opinion without sending the case for reconsideration. In particular, the court mentioned that the energy supply agreement should not restrict the consumes’ rights to change the energy supplier.

“A clearly defined Supreme Court’s opinion on this case will help to protect interests of consumes that changed their energy supplier as well as to avoid unreasonable fines”, – commented Partner and Head of Domestic Litigation at INTEGRITES Oleksandr Onishchenko.

INTEGRITES team providing legal advice to Metro Cash & Carry Ukraine LLC also included senior associates Serhii Rymar and Anton Kaganets. In summer 2020, the team also successfully represented interests of the client in the appeal proceeding related to the dispute with its former energy supplier.

Metro Cash & Carry Ukraine is the Ukrainian representative office of one of the international leaders in wholesale grocery retail, METRO Group (Germany). Operating in Ukraine since 2003, the network is represented by 26 shopping centres across the country