OREANDA-NEWS. The Tallin administrative Court accepted AS Tallina Vesi’s application for open court proceedings only partially, resolving to continue with the proceedings regarding „specific water services price“ in closed proceedings. The court’s ruling cannot be appealed.

In the interests of open communication and transparency the Company applied for open court proceedings, which was granted by the court on the 15th of February 2012. The Competition Authority refused to have open court proceedings and on the 31st of May 2012, Tallin District Court accepted their respective application without procedurally consulting with AS Tallina Vesi. The company was able to demonstrate, with verifiable evidence, the reasons why the case should be conducted under open proceedings and therefore re-applied for open court proceedings.

This now means that during the court proceedings all discussions regarding the process of the privatisation, the legality of the privatisation contract, the tariff mechanism and the economic and financial performance of AS Tallin Vesi will be open to public discussion. On the other hand based on the Competition Authority’s firm opinion, and despite of the Company’s repeated motions on full opening of the procedure, the court ruled that discussion over the actual tariff calculations and the Competition Authority’s reasoning, must take place under closed court proceedings to protect the information that the Competition Authority had claimed to be a “business secret”.

AS Tallina Vesi does not agree with the position that the Competition Authority, that is itself the main public authority, essentially a monopoly with the responsibility for setting utility tariffs for the population of Estonia, should be able to declare any information it chooses to be used only for “internal purposes” to protect its ways of working and methodologies.

AS Tallina Vesi re-iterates its previously stated position that it believes in fully transparent regulation for the benefit of its clients. We consider the continuing secrecy surrounding the approval of utility prices is a big concern for the clients of all companies regulated by the Competition Authority. In times of growing concern over the utility prices, the public authorities should be striving for greater transparency, and not into increased secrecy depriving the clients of the regulated companies from the right to understand the formation of regulated tariffs.