Bulgaria's Competition Watchdog Fines Sofia Heating Utility 230,000 Euro for Abusing Dominant Position

Toplofikatsia Sofia has stopped providing heating to several buildings and requested the owners of apartments to pay the debts of their tenants, the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) said in a statement. This way some customers that had paid their bills were deprived of the use of the service, as well.

Toplofikatsia Sofia intends to appeal the decision in court, the company's spokeswoman Elizabet Pavlova told SeeNews.

Toplofikatsia Sofia is the third-largest energy company in Bulgaria after the Kozloduy nuclear power plant and the country's largest coal mining and electricity complex Maritsa East. It has the capacity to produce six million megawatthours of heating energy and 850,000 MWh of electricity per year.

The Sofia heating utility entered the newly-founded Bulgarian Energy Holding after the Bulgarian economy ministry took full control over the debt-ridden company.