Enemalta has bowed to pressue from the Ombudsman and set up an advisory board to decide on claims for compensation made by consumers following power surges.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech disclosed the setting up of the board in parliament, saying it was set up after talks held by the corporation with the Ombudsman and the Malta Resources Authority.
The board, formed of three independent persons, will consider all requests received from consumers and decide whether Enemalta should give compensation for damages suffered.
The minister was replying to a question by Labour MP Evarist Bartolo, who asked what had become of a claim for compensation made by a consumer who in June 2009 suffered damages of €7,000 following a power surge.
The case had been referred to the Omudsman, who had recommended that Enemalta should respect EU directive 2009/72/EC and strengthen its mechanism to tackle such issues, without the need for the parties to go to court.
The case referred to by Mr Bartolo is now before the new board.
In his report after having considered the June 2009 case, the Ombudsman said he regretted Enemalta's hard attitude on the matter.
He noted that when the consumer claimed damages, Enemalta shrugged off any responsibility, invoking section 14 of the Enemalta Act, which, among other things, said that the corporation "shall not be liable for any damage to person or property or for any cessation of the supply of energy which may be due to unavoidable accident, fair wear and tear or overloading due to unauthorised connection of apparatus, or to the reasonable requirements of the electrical system, or to the defects in any electrical installation not provided by the corporation".
Dr Said Pullicino, a former Chief Justice, said that such blanket disclaimers had been judicially declared to be non-binding, especially when "the party disclaiming responsibility is a dominant public authority, enjoying a monopoly and providing an essential service to the citizen who must necessarily require that service from it".
The Ombudsman noted that, in the past, Enemalta had a different, more consumer-friendly approach to customers but in recent months there "seems to have been a hardening of Enemalta's position".
This, the Ombudsman said, was not the first such case his office had handled, and he had suggested the setting up of an independent board to examine cases where damages were incurred by power surges.
Up to that time, in order to challenge Enemalta, consumers had to go before an arbitration board. But, the Ombudsman noted, arbitration was "costly, time consuming, confrontational and adversarial". Moreover, the EU Energy Directive called specifically for an independent extra-judicial mechanism to treat complaints.
Enemalta, the Ombudsman said, had resisted the proposal, stressing that the arbitration board was enough and that there was a pending court case before the Constitutional Court on the matter.
He found the corporation's stand was unsatisfactory in that it went against the spirit of the EU Energy Directive.
"It is about time that public authorities and corporations in Malta recognise this new culture that has thankfully taken root in the European Union and that is finding its way in the public administration and sanctioned by the case law of our courts," the Ombudsman said.
In 2009, Enemalta paid consumers €65,092 for 151 compensation claims, nearly double the amount paid out in the previous year.