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Rising energy prices: Electricity supplier Mint Energie targeted by class action

2022-06-22T04:17:43.431Z


After an initial legal action last November against four operators, the consumer association CLCV reiterates with


In these troubled times of soaring energy prices, this type of action is likely to multiply.

The CLCV (Consumption, housing and living environment) is launching a class action against Mint before the judicial court of Montpellier (Hérault).

What does the consumer defense association accuse the energy supplier of?

To have unilaterally replaced last November an electricity supply indexed to the regulated sales tariff (TRV), set by the public authorities, with another supply, called “Flex & Green”.

Problem: the prices charged by this offer are directly indexed to the monthly average of the wholesale market.

As long as the latter remained stable, and relatively low, it could eventually pass.

The problem is that energy prices have literally exploded in recent months, due to the post-Covid economic recovery and the war in Ukraine.

The class action against Mint constitutes the second stage of a legal rocket started by the CLCV in November 2021, with a summons which also targeted three other operators: ekWateur, GreenYellow (subsidiary of Cdiscount) and Ovo Energy.

Between 500,000 and 600,000 individual customers would be affected by increases that could reach between 30 and 40%.

"In addition to alerting households to the risks they incur with certain suppliers, these two legal actions will allow, in the event of a favorable decision, many individuals to be compensated for the financial loss they have suffered. suffered", explains François Carlier, the general delegate of the CLCV.

Litigation on the rise with Mint Energie

The consumer defense association does not seem to be the only one to have Mint Energie in its sights.

The National Energy Mediator, in particular, has launched discussions with the management of the supplier to “seek amicable solutions to numerous disputes”.

The independent public authority indeed had to process, between January 1 and June 7, some 542 cases directly related to Mint Energie, of which “about a third concerned the question of tariff changes”.

That is, over six months, 240 more disputes than over the whole of 2021.

Read alsoEnergy suppliers in big trouble

"We are indeed working in collaboration with the mediator to provide a solution to customers who still encounter difficulties with their contract", recognizes Sylvia Michiels, marketing director of Mint.

If the supplier still claimed a portfolio of 120,000 customers last February (compared to 150,000 in October 2021), the group's management nevertheless refuses to specify how many customers would still be affected today.

Public authorities are closely monitoring how energy suppliers – of electricity but also of gas – are weathering the current crisis.

“We did not wait for the crisis of this fall to act in favor of consumer protection against the practices of certain suppliers, explains the Ministry of Energy Transition.

In particular thanks to the maintenance of the electricity TRV obtained in 2018, or more recently with the creation of the emergency supplier.

In the event of supplier failure, EDF indeed ensures that the households concerned do not find themselves plunged into darkness.

Source: leparis

All business articles on 2022-06-22

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