Energia y Servicios Aby 2018 SL – €200,000 Fine (Spain, 2021)

Energia y Servicios Aby 2018 SL (ESA 2018) and Watium SL filed a complaint against I-DE, Redes Eléctricas Inteligentes SAU (I-DE, previously Iberdrola Distribución Eléctrica) before the Spanish DPA (AEPD). Watium is an electric power trading company which is subscribed with the energy distribution company I-DE by way of a network access contract (ATR). This contract is refers to Articles 3(2) and 3(3) of the Royal Decree 1435/2002. The contract included the identification and contact of the end consumer, the logo of Iberdrola Distribución Eléctrica (now i-DE) and the identification of Watium. Although signed by the two entities, there is no place for the end consumer's signature in the contract. In the letters sent by Iberdrola/I-DE to Watium end consumers in 2018, Iberdrola/I-DE stated that the were forced to send Watium (according to the law) a request for payment for unpaid invoices. They requires that the end consumer get in contact with their provider company. Watium informed these facts to the Spanish Competition Authority (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia - CNMC) and the Spanish DPA (AEPD) in January 2018. At the time, the AEPD issued a report stating that it could be concluded that processing of personal data carried out by I-DE violated data protection law (legal basis and data protection principles). The report highlighted that the appropriate legal basis would have been contractual necessity (Article 6(1)(c)) but the processing of personal data of the consumer (who acts by way of an intermediary) is not necessary for the fulfillment of that contract as the intermediary is precisely there to deal with the communication with these types of communications. The AEPD at the time added that I-DE violated the principles of purpose limitation and data minimisation (Article 5(1)(b) and (c)). In January 2020, Energia y Servicios Aby 2018 SL (ESA 2018), another electric power trading company subscribed to I-DE complained to the AEPD about identi