1. REPUBLIC OF LATVIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION Līga Daugaviete Senior Legal Adviser of Energy Division October 26, 2005 Customer Complaints and Dispute Resolution in Latvia Customer Complaints and Dispute Resolution in Latvia

2. 2 Law On Regulators of Public Services Section 9. Regulator’s Functions (1) The Commission and the municipal regulator shall perform the following functions: 1) to protect the interests of the users and to promote development of public services’ providers; 5) to carry out preliminary extrajudicial examination of disputes; Section 32. Preliminary Extrajudicial Examination of Disputes (1) The Regulator as a compulsory preliminary extrajudicial court instance shall consider the disputes arising from the relations of provisioning of public services and other disputed matters which by this Law are transferred to the competence of the regulator, except for disputes concerning the debt collection from the user for the public services received.

3. 3 STATISTICS Total number of disputes resolved in 2004/2005 – 8 Number of disputes in the field of energy supply – 7 Number of disputes appealed in the court - 4

4. 4 Special features of dispute resolution process 1.Regulator’s decision on dispute resolution can be appealed in the Administrative court. As a result the regulator becomes a party in the court proceedings 2. The latest court practice – large service providers (e.g. Latvenergo) are considered subjects of public law. As a result service provider shall act as a state institution

5. 5 Communication of decisions to public Law On Regulators of Public Services does not oblige the regulator to publish decisions on dispute resolution Exception – Electronic Communications Law Is there a real necessity to make decisions public?

6. Thank you for your attention! www.sprk.gov.lv