Bertalan Tóth, the leader of the MSZP faction, sued the Economic Competition Authority because the authority did not initiate a competition supervision procedure due to the misleading information provided by the orange overhead box of gas bills, writes Népszava in its article on Tuesday.
The MVM shows the “savings” achieved through “reduced utilities” and residential market prices on the residential gas bill based on the stock market price, which is a multiple of the real one, the leader of the MSZP faction draws attention to.
The “payment obligation without reduced utility fee” in the orange “utility box” of the gas bill derives the “savings” achieved through reduced utility prices, which undoubtedly seem significant compared to this, from the “gas cost” of more than a thousand forints per cubic meter, which is many times the current market level – believes Bertalan Tóth, MSZP faction leader. The opposition politician previously filed a complaint with the Economic Competition Authority (GVH) on the suspicion of deceiving consumers due to the utility box suspected of being a scam.
The left-wing politician previously asked the GVH to initiate the procedure because, according to him, utility boxes contain misleading information for consumers, when they determine the amount of savings that can be achieved with the officially fixed end-consumer price compared to last year’s record market prices. According to the MSZP politician, consumers with misleading information are less able to make an informed decision about changing service providers, if they could get energy elsewhere at a more favorable price.
GVH thought for two months before realizing that regsi boxing is not deceptive
After more than two months of deliberation, the GVH rejected the notification against MVM Next Zrt., in which it initiated competition office proceedings due to suspicion of unfair commercial practices
– Bertalan Tóth published in connection with the case.
On behalf of the GVH, it was already indicated when the announcement was made that they are not usually competent in this type of case, that consumer protection tasks belong to the government office. However, the case of Bertalan Tóth was judged on its merits, and although the representative was recently informed that the procedure would be extended by two months, a decision was made at the beginning of November. The competition office informed 24.hu that they examined the notification in detail and thoroughly, requested data from both the notifier and the notified company, took into account the information from the data services received, the other available documents, and evaluated the relevant facts. based on all these
in the procedure, the GVH established that, based on the contents of the notification and the data obtained in the procedure based on the notification, the conditions for starting the competition supervision procedure do not exist.
Népszava writes: Bertalan Tóth reiterates in the current lawsuit: according to the legislation, the savings must not be tailored to some kind of purchase price of MVM, but to the “competitive market unit price”. According to him, this is by definition the current stock price. Bertalan Tóth also objects on a principled basis that the authority was satisfied with the fact that the ratio applied by the MVM was “unlikely” to be illegal, instead of the fact that the MVM should have proved the validity of its claim.
In the lawsuit, Bertalan Tóth asked the Metropolitan Court to set aside the order of the GVH and oblige the competition office to conduct a new procedure, Népszava reports.