“The balancing group managers bear the risk that they are debtors of the new gas procurement levy without any possibility to pass it on to end customers or holders of sub-balance groups.”
This also leaves it to chance whether end customers may be burdened with the levy (as the government likely intended) or not. From the point of view of balancing group managers, it is therefore advisable to check all contracts at short notice to see if contractual rights to pass on such a new levy exist and, if not, to make corresponding contractual amendments where possible to enable this. Otherwise, the balancing group managers bear the risk that they are debtors of the new gas procurement levy without any possibility to pass it on to end customers or holders of sub-balance groups.
A further weakness of the draft regulation lies in § 2 Paragraph 8., which requires that gas importers do not set the budget billing value for the following month until the 15th of a month. Even if a balancing group manager has a contractual right of pass-on the levy, this presents the balancing group managers with the operational and financial risk (costs for paper, printing and postage) of both communicating these price adjustments to end customers in good time and implementing them. A further difficulty is that postal service providers are unlikely to be able to deliver the volume of letters reliably and on time.
It is therefore urgent for balancing group managers to take action. WFW will be happy to assist in this regard.
