In the middle of the energy crisis, the Riigikogu amended the Energy Market Act in such a way that Eesti Energia was obliged to sell electricity to consumers at a price approved or established by the Competition Authority. Eesti Energia was also required to pay a supervision fee to the Competition Authority.

In September 2022, the Competition Authority set the price of Eesti Energia's universal electricity service at €154.08 per megawatt-hour. At the end of August a year later, the Competition Authority announced that a supervision fee of €1.18 million should be paid to the authority for the approval of the universal service price.

The county court decided that the supervision fee established by the Competition Authority was disproportionately large and did not take into account the actual sales volume of the universal service.

According to the court's assessment, the Competition Authority should not have considered the maximum volume of universal service that could be sold in calculating the supervision fee, but rather the actual volume of universal service sold.

The court emphasized that the regulation of the supervision fee could not have been intended to create a situation where Eesti Energia's subsidiary, Enefit Power, becomes one of the largest financiers of the Competition Authority, and the authority should have understood this when issuing the order.

The court pointed out that according to Enefit Power's calculations, the universal service supervision fee payable by it would constitute 29 percent of the total annual budget of the Competition Authority and 70 percent of what all other approximately 200 market participants pay as supervision fees between them.

This also caused a situation where Enefit Power had to pay the universal service supervision fee using revenue from other electricity sales, not just from universal service proceeds.

According to the court's decision, after determining the new size of the universal service supervision fee, the Competition Authority must return the overpaid supervision fee to the complainant and pay interest on it.

The decision has not yet taken effect and can be appealed within a month.

Additionally, a dispute between Enefit Power and the Competition Authority over the non-approval of the production price for the universal service offered by Enefit Power is still ongoing in the Tallinn Administrative Court.

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