Hotline of power engineering specialists:
The Arbitration Court of the Central District satisfied the claim of Lipetskenergo for 4.5 million rubles on the fact of non-metered power consumption by an elite recreation facility.
During the next inspection, employees of the Lipetsk branch of IDGC of Centre in Dobrovsky district discovered the absence of voltage at one of the phases of the meter located in the transformer substation of the owner of the elite recreation facility. The meter reading was significantly different from the control measurement data of the grid company.
The power engineers drew up a non-metered consumption report with the participation of the consumer’s representative. According to the experts, the non-metered consumption amounted to 1.4 million kWh, which is equivalent to 4.5 million rubles.
The businessman refused to pay damages, so Lipetskenergo’s lawyers had to prove the validity of the bill in an arbitration court. During the trial, the owner of the meter tried to assure that he did not intervene in the work of the metering system and was not responsible for its malfunction. However, the court, based on information from the manufacturer’s specialists of this metering device involved, ruled that the businessman did not fulfill his legislative duties to maintain the device belonging to him in proper technical condition, which led to a distortion of data on the amount of electricity consumption. This decision was consistently confirmed by the Arbitration Court of the Lipetsk Region, the 19th Arbitration Court of Appeal, the Arbitration Court of the Central District and ordered to pay to the power company 4.5 million rubles according to the non-metered consumption report.
The power engineers draw the attention of consumers that interference with the operation of an electricity metering device, according to Article 7.19 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation, imposes an administrative fine on individuals in the amount of 10 to 15 thousand rubles, for legal entities from 100 to 200 thousand rubles. For particularly large theft - imprisonment for up to two years.
