Regulators approve the Compliance Programme of TAP

The three national regulatory authorities of Albania (ERE), Greece (RAE) and Italy (AEEGSI) have approved the first Compliance Programme proposed by the company TAP AG for TAP, the pipeline that will bring Azeri gas to Italy, through Greece and Albania.

As mandated by the Final Joint Opinion which was approved by the three regulatory Authorities in June of 2013, TAP AG, has to implement functional unbundling prior to allocating capacity as a result of the first Booking Phase (scheduled to take place on the 17th of March 2014). To this end, TAP AG submitted to the Authorities for their approval, a Compliance Programme, which sets out measures aimed at ensuring that discriminatory conduct is excluded and that, no commercially sensitive information is communicated to shareholders.

The Compliance Programme of TAP AG, as approved by the Authorities, lays down in detail the following: (a) Measures to prevent discriminatory conduct in relation to the participants in the first Booking Phase of the market test, who are not shareholders in TAP AG; (b) The duties and the rights of the employees of TAP AG in the fulfilment of the purpose of the Compliance Programme; (c) The person or body responsible for monitoring the Compliance Programme and submitting to the Authorities an Annual Compliance Report, setting out the measures taken; (d) The principles of the tariff methodology and the congestion management rules that were to be applied to the marketing of capacity by TAP AG.

In essence, the Compliance Programme provides a binding framework to ensure that TAP AG, as well as its Employees, shall comply with all the requirements as set out in section 4.5.1 of the Final Joint Opinion prior to its certification as an ITO in accordance with the Final Joint Opinion. The Compliance Programme of TAP AG will also be published on the internet website of TAP AG prior to the first Booking Phase.

The decision of the three Authorities is the result of the excellent partnership undertaken since the beginning of the exemption procedure. This model is an example of best practice in Europe and the approval of the Compliance Programme represents a second additional step (following the approval of the Tariff Code) towards the realization of an infrastructure that will increase competition and diversification of gas sources as well as security of energy supply in the European natural gas market.

energjia.al 24.02.2014