Poland: Regulator slaps fine on Engie over Nordstream project

Poland’s anti-monopoly watchdog has fined the French energy group Engie in relation to a probe into the construction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline, reported the Financial Times. 

 The regulator UOKiK, which warned three years ago that the project would undermine competition, dealt a 172m-zloty (€40m) penalty on the energy group. 

The project, which will ferry Russian gas directly to Germany, has provoked deep disagreements in the EU, with Poland one of a number of central and eastern European countries that fear it is a geopolitical attempt to increase Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.

Marek Niechcial, UOKiK’s chairman, said that Engie, one of five European companies funding Nordsteam 2, had refused to share information relating to its contracts with Gazprom, the state-owned Russian gas group that is leading the project. 

“The company persistently and groundlessly refused to send us the documents and materials we had requested,” Michal Holeksa, UOKiK’s deputy chairman said. “This caused a significant delay in our activities relating to the financing of the construction of Nordstream 2.”

Full Content: Reuters

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