A non-payment of €6M: the reason behind Holaluz's possible disqualification

BarcelonaThis Saturday, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge began a procedure to disqualify the Catalan Holaluz as an electricity marketer. The reasons behind the start of the process were unknown. Now, as advanced by the FiveDays and ARA has been able to confirm, the reason that would have motivated the ministry to undertake the process has been a non-payment of six million euros to different distributors. Specifically, Holaluz's debt is four million euros to the subsidiaries of Endesa's networks and it also has one million euros pending payment to Iberdrola and Naturgy.

As detailed by the aforementioned media, the origin of the proceedings dates back to April 8, when Iberdrola's distributor, I-DE Redes Inteligentes, reported non-payment of 986,085 euros by Holaluz for a debt in tolls and charges, which are the fixed part of the electricity bill that marketers collect from their clients on the receipt. Weeks later, Endesa's distributor, E-distribución Redes Digitales, also notified the Ministry for Ecological Transition that the Catalan company owed them 2.3 million euros, also for tolls and charges.

A few days later, as explained by the FiveDays, Holaluz responded to the ministry's requests by stating that all amounts were "duly paid" and presented proof of payments made to Iberdrola. But then Naturgy (with its subsidiary UDF Distribución Eléctrica) also appeared, which communicated that it was a creditor for a debt of 951,670 euros. At the end of May, the volume of debts had risen even more: Holaluz owed 4.2 million to Endesa, 1.1 million to Naturgy, and almost 1 million to Iberdrola. During the beginning of summer, however, the debt with Naturgy and Endesa decreased to 261,000 euros and 3 million, respectively.

Holaluz argues that it is a "procedure"

Despite the start of the procedure, Holaluz assured on Sunday that the procedure initiated by the Ministry for Ecological Transition to extinguish its license as an electricity marketer is "a specific administrative procedure" and guaranteed supply to its clients. In a statement sent to the stock market regulator BME Growth, the SME stock exchange, Holaluz indicated that "it is a specific administrative procedure within the regulatory framework of the sector, which the company is managing according to usual procedures".