Suppliers are obliged to recalculate and rectify invoices following frequent legislative changes, which greatly affects trust in the consumer-supplier partnership, said Thursday, Laurențiu Urluescu, president of the Romanian Energy Suppliers’ Association (AFEER).

“For about two years now, we have had all kinds of crises, large price increases, liquidity crises, energy crisis. First of all, I must mention the awkward position for suppliers and energy traders. The supplier was blamed for things that are beyond its control. The supplier is obliged to recalculate and rectify invoices following frequent legislative changes, which greatly affects trust in the consumer-supplier partnership,” said Laurentiu Urluescu, according to Agerpres.

According to him, consumers did not understand invoice rectifications, which is why they launched accusations against suppliers.

“We had great difficulties in the customer relations centers because of consumers which did not understand the rectification of invoices and here was a rather large workflow. There were many accusations launched,” said the president of AFEER.

In his opinion, another impact is the real lack of public consultation or impact studies before the regulations are changed.

“Thus, unclear and sometimes inapplicable provisions appeared in the regulations, the interpretation of which is left to the discretion of each market participant. This is unpleasant for us, because there is an increased risk of misinterpreting certain regulations and, later on, we were sanctioned for this. Again, I must mention that some changes were issued at the last minute, without considering a period to implement those changes. This, most of the time, led to us to not being able to implement the changes within the deadline from the law. Again, I must mention that an impact on suppliers is excessive taxation. The transaction tax is 98% of the gross margin,” added Laurentiu Urluescu.