OREANDA-NEWS. AS Tallinna Vesi (hereinafter the Company) as a company listed on the Tallinn Stock Exchange notified its shareholders and investment community that the Company has submitted tariff applications to the Estonian Competition Authority in line with the tariff agreement contained in the Services Agreement concluded in 2001.

This means that the Company has submitted applications for the tariff increases that were due from 1st January 2011, 1st January 2012, 1st January 2013 and 1st January 2014. On 10th of February 2014, the Company made a simple notification to its shareholders confirming that it had fulfilled its contractual obligation in accordance with the contract. The company did this because the Competition Authority has taken the decision to publish the latest tariff applications made by water undertakings. To avoid any confusion for shareholders, i.e. shareholders may not be clear if the tariff applications were in accordance with the contract, the Company made this stock exchange announcement.

The Competition Authority's decision to start disclosing additional information on its webpage and the stock exchange announcement triggered by this decision are independent from and do not influence the pending disputes between the Competition Authority and the Company.

The Company believes these tariff applications should be accepted by the Competition Authority in following reasons:

they are fully in accordance with the EBRD sponsored privatization contract that was approved by the Estonian Government in 2000;

in May 2012 the Estonian Courts have declared that this tariff agreement is an administrative agreement (i.e. a public law contract) under Estonian law. Therefore, as this is a public law contract, Company and its shareholders believe that the Competition Authority should take due respect of this fact and respect the Estonian legal system and honor its legal obligations.

As a result of all of the above, the company firmly believes that the terms and conditions of the public law Services Agreement should be honored, especially when in the current situation only the state institution that regulates the public law contract has changed - the previous state appointed regulator was the City of Tallinn (2001 to 2010), the current state appointed regulator is the Competition Authority (2010-2014).

Thus, contractually the Company has, in accordance with the tariff agreement, signed as part of AS Tallinna Vesi's privatization, applied for a following tariff increases:

3.5% from 01st January 2011;

4.9% from 01st January 2012;

3.9% from 1st January 2013;

3.8% from 1st January 2014.