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Litigation between IDGC of Centre - Smolenskenergo division and "Vyazemskiy Electrotechnical Plant" LLC ("VETP" LLC) began in April 2014. Then the grid company appealed to the Arbitration Court of the Smolensk region with a claim on the requirement performance for the introduction of self-limiting power of the plant due to the inability to set limits to feeding centres of Smolenskenergo, as other electricity consumers will suffer from it.
The agreement for transmission of electric power between IDGC of Centre and "VETP" LLC was signed October 1, 2013. Under its terms "the committed to provide the consumer with electric power transmission services through the implementation of a set of organizational and technologically related activities, providing the transmission of electricity through technical devices of electric grids owned by the grid company, and the consumer is required to pay for these services." However, in connection with the systematic violation of the consumer’s payment obligations for the provided electricity transmission services, IDGC of Centre was forced to send "VETP" LLC a notice of the need for action on partial self-restriction of the consumption mode.
"We explain that the electric energy consumption restriction mode is introduced in certain circumstances, including the occurrence of consumer debt to pay for the services of electric power transmission. After our notice the plant did not measures for the self-limitation of power consumption, so we appealed to the Arbitration Court of the Smolensk region for the settlement of the issue and to avoid increasing the debt of the plant to the power company," commented the head of the legal support Office of Smolenskenergo Maxim Antipov.
Court case №A62-411/2014 confirmed the debt of "Vyazemskiy Electrotechnical Plant" LLC to the plaintiff as well as the fact that the call for the need for self-administration of the mode of partial limitation of power consumption was not responded. Third parties not making independent claims concerning the subject of the dispute, provided feedback on the claim that the obligation to pay for electricity supplied are executed by them in the case of limiting the power consumption mode the defendant’s rights and legitimate interests of these persons will not be violated.
As a result, the court of the Smolensk region ordered "Vyazemskiy Electrotechnical Plant" LLC to implement the mode to limit the level of consumption established for emergency reservation by disconnecting powered installations of the plant from electrical grids of IDGC of Centre. Disagreeing with the court acts the plant filed an appeal, but the Twentieth Tula arbitration court of appeal in late 2014 left the previous judgment unchanged and the complaint - without satisfaction, and acted to collect legal costs from the plant in the form of the paid state fee under the case.
The third instance where the plant appealed in 2015 was the arbitration court of the Central District of Kaluga, which also confirmed the correctness of the decision of the court of the Smolensk region.
Thus, all three of the courts came to the conclusion that the conditions for the introduction of the defendant’s power consumption limitation mode were present, and that was done.
Smolenskenergo said that receivables of the plant on January 1, 2015 amounted to more than 1.3 million rubles, as of the end of April it decreased to 358.5 thousand rubles. However, there is still the debt to pay for the services of electricity transmission, and the money could be spent by the grid company to maintain the reliability of grids. Due to the power consumption limitation, the plant was forced to quickly pay off the entire debt to the power company to continue to work in full.
"This judicial practice allows the power company in the future to introduce such restrictions for electricity bad non-payers to help quickly resolve the debt for the consumed services, and to punish offenders. Going to court - this is an extreme measure. The reason for the use of such harsh sanctions as a rule becomes a violation of the terms of payment of electricity bills by consumers, and the accumulation of debt. Unfortunately, it is not the only case in the region. Defaulters should remember that after the decision of the court in addition to the payment of debt to restore power supply they will be required to compensate for the grid company the cost of disconnecting and reconnecting its power installations to the grid, and to the court - the state duty. Should it be brought to this stage? Maybe it is easier to pay the debts, because without electric power no enterprise can work," summed up Maxim Antipov.
Please, be reminded that the Smolensk branch of IDGC of Centre in 2015 intensified its efforts for the timely collection of debts for consumed electricity. Now Smolenskenergo has a permanently running Finance Committee, which controls over the whole debt of defaulters. Claim-related work is actively under way: negotiations on the repayment of debt out of court with consumers are held; sending claims about violation of terms of payment with calculation of interest on borrowed money; debt collection in court.
In this regard, Smolenskenergo encourages those who have not yet covered their arrears of payment for electricity transmission services to do so in the near future.