Coordinator for negotiations to the President of the EROE Report for 2017 - Reports -

Implementing the obligation of Coordinator for negotiations to the President of the Energy Regulatory Office (hereinafter referred to as the Coordinator) resulting from art. 11 sec. 1 of the Act of September 23^rd, 2016 on Out-of-court resolution of consumer disputes (Journal of Laws of 2016, item 1823), I hereby inform that:

1. 382 cases were presented to the Coordinator, of which the criteria meeting cases for qualifying the consumer's letter as a motion and initiating the proceedings based on it were 156. 88% (137 out of 156) applications arose from the electricity market, and the remaining 12% (19 out of 156) from the gaseous fuel market.
   In both cases, the most frequent subject of dispute were issues related to accounting with an energy company or the consumer being misled when signing a contract with an energy company.
2. a recurring and important problem in the relations between consumers and energy companies, constituting frequent hotbeds of disputes were the issues of misleading the consumer when signing a contract.
   A dispute arising from the above mentioned reason can be avoided throughout carefully examining the agreement to be signed, above all by verifying the parties names, as well as meticulous review of the terms of trade and duration. It is also recommended to verify in detail the authorization and identity of a person handling the contract to be signed.
3. The Coordinator rejected to handle the dispute in 8 cases, which constitutes 2% (8 out of 382) of all disputes lodged in 2017. In 25% (2 of 8) of cases, the rejection had been dictated by non-compliance with the objective criteria, whereas in 75% (6 of 8) of cases by failure to meet the subjective criteria.
4. nearly 13% (20 out of 156) of the proceedings initiated in 2017 were closed before reaching results due to the energy company’s lack of consent to participate in the proceeding. In 100% of the proceedings resulting in the outcome, the parties came to an agreement. It were 23 proceedings, which is nearly 15% (23 out of 156) of the proceedings initiated in 2017.
5. The average duration of proceedings concluded by the protocol in 2017 was above 70 days.
6. The Coordinator does not perform analyses of the percentage share of cases, in which the parties have complied with the outcome of the out-of-court resolution of consumer disputes, in relation to the number of proceedings initiated.
7. The Coordinator does not belong to the network of entities that conduct out-of-court proceedings for resolving consumer disputes, facilitating the cross-border dispute resolutions.