Vector goes to highest court on pricing regulation

Vector goes to highest court on pricing regulation

By Pattrick Smellie

June 29 (BusinessDesk) - Vector will take its fight against the Commerce Commission's approach to regulating monopoly electricity and gas pricing to the Supreme Court, after losing in the Court of Appeal in a dispute about the factors required for calculating the starting prices used in calculating permissible rates of return.

Vector initially won the argument in the High Court that process for setting so-called "starting prices" should be included in the "final input methodologies" that used in determining what prices Vector and other such monopolies can charge customers in the future.

"The company believes "the original decision made by the High Court was robust and is therefore appealing to the Supreme Court for a final decision."

"The inclusion of a starting price methodology in the input methodologies framework is fundamental to a good regulatory regime and in our view this was implicit in the decision to make the amendments to the Commerce Act in 2008," said Vector chief executive Simon Mackenzie.

The decision to appeal comes at a time when the Commerce Commission is under pressure over its decision to favour low prices to consumers over the development of a national ultra-fast broadband network, as mandated by the government's $1.35 billion UFB roll-out subsidy.

(BusinessDesk)

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