E.ON AG (EOAN.XE) Monday became the
first of Germany's four nuclear reactor operators to take the government to
court over a decision earlier this year to accelerate the planned exit from
nuclear energy, saying the company's proprietary rights have been affected and
it should be compensated.
E.ON will be the first of the four to sue the government over its policy
reversal after the nuclear meltdowns in Japan's Fukushima Daiichi reactors in
March, with analysts saying the compensation claims from utilities could total
or even exceed EUR15 billion.
"We will file a constitutional complaint against the latest amendment of
the atomic energy law, which was passed this summer," a spokesman for E.ON
said.
He added that the complaint would be filed Monday afternoon and said E.ON seeks
to claim damages worth "a high single-figure billion amount."
E.ON's peers RWE AG (RWE.XE) and Vattenfall Europe AG have previously said they
are also examining legal steps, and recent press reports have said Sweden's
state-controlled Vattenfall is considering taking Germany to a Washington
DC-based arbitration court.
A German government spokesman said the government had passed an atomic energy
law that was in accordance with the constitution, adding it was up to the
companies to ask for a legal evaluation of the matter. He declined to comment
further.
The company's spokesman added that the constitutional complaint, however,
wasn't targeted against political and public consensus to speed up the nuclear
phase out.
"However, in our opinion the strong intrusion into the generally protected
proprietary rights...that have been caused by the amendment of the atomic
energy law violates the constitution without being compensated for
accordingly," the spokesman for E.ON said.
The lawsuit comes after E.ON and its fellow operators last week reported hefty
declines in earnings for the first nine months of the year, as impairments and
increased nuclear provisions for the early dismantling of reactors weighed on
profits.
Additionally, the utilities suffered lost earnings from the reactors they had
to shutdown immediately under the amended nuclear laws, which is expected to
weigh on their results because they traditionally forward sell their
electricity production several years ahead of physical delivery to customers.
The nuclear exit decision threatens to become bogged down with legal disputes,
and several of the nuclear reactor operators have previously sued the
government over the introduction of a tax on nuclear fuel, which the companies
say also violates the constitution.
In preliminary decision on the nuclear tax, two courts have previously
expressed doubts that the levy is constitutional.