By Diogo Albaneze Gomes Ribeiro
On 06.06.2018, Law 13,673 of June 5, 2018 (“Law 13,673/2018”) came into force, requiring public service concessionaires and providers to publish on their websites a table showing the evolution of the tariffs and prices they charge.
To this end, Law 13,673/2018 amended article 9 of Law 8,987/95 (“Concessions Law”), adding the following § 5:
“Art. 9
(…)§ 5 The concessionaire shall publish on its website, clearly and in a way easily understood by users, a table with the tariffs charged and the evolution of the reviews or adjustments made in the last five years.”
These same changes were reflected in the legislation governing the electricity and telecommunications sectors.
In this context, art. 15 of Law 9,427/1996, which established the National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL) and, among other things, governed the regime for electricity public service concessions, now includes §3, as follows:
“Art. 15. ………………………………………………………………
(…) § 3 The concessionaire shall publish on its website, clearly and in a way easily understood by the end consumer, a table with the tariffs charged and the evolution of the reviews or adjustments made in the last five years.”
In the telecommunications sector, the following sole paragraph was added to art. 3 of Law 9,472/1997: “To comply with item IV of the caput of this article, the service provider shall publish on its website, clearly and in a way easily understood by users, a table with the tariffs and prices charged and the evolution of the adjustments made in the last five years.”
The justification for this legislative innovation is to give society greater transparency regarding the tariffs charged by public service providers. It is also intended to give users an easy way to compare the prices charged by companies offering the same service.
