(1) The Italian Competition Authority decided that the interruption of the water supply without any prior communication constitutes an unfair commercial practices, and in particular a misleading omission, since the trader had omitted material information that the average consumer needs to take an informed transactional decision.
The Authority also decided that such practice is contrary to the requirement of professional diligence. Taking into account the relevance of the service concerned, the trader is expected to attend to a higher degree of professional diligence. Accordingly, the trader must adopt specific actions prior to the interruption of the water supply (e.g., send a registered letter, in order to inform the consumer).
The Authority also took into account the significant importance of the service in question (water) and the fact that the trader acts in the relevant market as a monopolist.
(2) With respect to the request to pay non-chargeable costs, the complaint was dismissed, since -- even if the trader had carried out some accounting mistakes -- it had proved to adopt an efficient control system to immediately verify and handle consumer complaints.
URL: http://www.agcm.it/agcm_ita/DSAP/Dsap_pi.nsf/a0d111d6626f957fc125652a00315873/f6a90427bfea56ebc12575910045f75a?OpenDocument&Highlight=2,PS166
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