Contravention of AUC Rules – Specified Penalties
On January 1, 2019, Rule 032: Specified Penalties (“Rule 032”) came into effect. Rule 032 established specified penalties for contraventions of select provisions of AUC rules related to customer care and billing issues and, in June 2019, the AUC began issuing specified penalties pursuant to this rule.
The AUC considered feedback following the issuance of the June 2019 specified penalties and, on a go-forward basis, the AUC will consider multiple occurrences of a contravention specified in the AUC Rule 032 penalty table as one contravention, provided those contraventions:
(a) are self-reported;
(b) relate to the same customer name and site ID number;
(c) occurred in consecutive months or billing periods; and
(d) were carried out by the same distinct legal entity.
Effective July 19, 2019, the amended evaluation process, was intended to provide an increased incentive for utilities to self-report contraventions while also providing additional certainty regarding how specified penalties for self-reported contraventions will be assessed.
