Mr. Mundt, consumers feel they have been cheated because falling wholesale prices for electricity and gas are not reaching them.

Does the cartel office have to intervene?

Helmut Buender

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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If prices on the energy exchanges fall, end customer prices do not fall immediately and across the board to the same extent.

Time delays are normal, incidentally also in high price phases in the opposite direction.

Some of the very high price peaks of the past year are only now being reflected in end customer prices.

It always depends on the respective procurement policy and other contexts.

There are no automatisms and therefore no reason to immediately assume illegal behavior.

There is a very agitated debate about this, and not all of them make a fact-based argument.

And anyone who feels cheated should switch providers: That's how competition works.

Nevertheless, many expect the cartel office to take a closer look at what is happening.

This is what we do.

But that doesn't mean we have to approve or stop current price increases.

Hundreds of consumers have already sent us their electricity and gas bills to be checked.

However, antitrust law only allows intervention against high prices under very strict conditions.

We have already done this in the past, for example in the district heating and water markets.

However, these proceedings were all based on classic antitrust law, because they were so-called trapped customers who could not avoid their monopoly suppliers, and the companies abused their market position for excessive prices.

That is exactly what is now suspected.

Where's the difference?

In antitrust law, we would first have to deal with companies that dominate the market.

Many are overlooking this at the moment.

However, there is a large variety of suppliers on the energy markets.

In Germany we have over 1000 electricity suppliers and around 1500 suppliers who supply gas and heat.

However, the federal government has now tasked us with a completely new and different task: to prevent abuse of the price brakes for electricity, gas and district heating.

However, this is not directly about protecting competition or consumers, but about protecting the state and taxpayers from plundering the state coffers.

Is the price brake so susceptible to subsidy fraud?

At least the temptation is great.

The prices are completely capped for customers if they do not consume more than 80 percent compared to the previous year.

And since the state reimburses utilities for the difference in the actual price, there is an incentive to increase prices more than necessary.

Customers only pay the capped price, so they have little incentive to switch, and the provider can rake in extra profits at the expense of the state.

In such a subsidized world, both sides could feel comfortable.

Therefore, the price brake law requires that suppliers may only increase their prices in line with the procurement costs and regulatory costs such as network charges.

How does the cartel office want to control this?

In fact, there are some misconceptions about this.

Some even read that suppliers have to have their price increases approved by us.

However, we will not become a price approval authority in the future either.

Quite apart from the fact that with around 40 million electricity contracts and twelve million gas supply contracts, that would be completely illusory.

And it's not just about consumer prices, we have to focus our attention above all on the individual contracts of the suppliers with an estimated 50,000 different industrial customers.

Our task is to find and pick out the few black sheep.