Understanding to terminate disputes on German nuclear phase out

The German Government today announced cornerstones of an understanding with E.ON, EnBW, RWE and Vattenfall to terminate disputes on German nuclear phase out and to implement German Constitutional Court rulings on such matter.

The German Constitutional Court has confirmed twice that Vattenfall was discriminated as it could not use its production rights in its own nuclear power plants whereas competitors could. The understanding is designed to terminate such discrimination.

According to the understanding, Vattenfall would receive a compensation of EUR 1,425 million, subject to taxation.

"This is a conservative implementation of the court decisions in Germany that in the end is acceptable to us. We welcome the envisaged agreement as it puts an end to many years of costly and time-consuming disputes around the German nuclear phase out. Germany is an important market to us and we will now focus on moving forward with our plans to phase out fossil fuels and continue to invest in climate friendly heating and renewable energy production," says Anna Borg, President and CEO, Vattenfall.

The details of the understanding need to be worked out in a corresponding agreement and a law, that is to be passed by the German Parliament. All commitments will be subject to the EU Commission’s confirmation that the compensation does not include state aid.

It furthermore includes additional sale of production rights by Vattenfall to E.ON for EUR 181 million to cover the remaining lifetime of E.ON:s nuclear plants. Adding this to the compensation by the Government will thus result in total EUR 1,606 million for Vattenfall. The previous sales of nuclear production rights from nuclear power plant Krümmel to E.ON will be reversed. The understanding also addresses compensation for stranded investments in the lifetime prolongation that do not regard Vattenfall.

Part of the overall understanding with the industry is to terminate all kind of related disputes including the court proceedings initiated by E.ON against Vattenfall and the proceedings of Vattenfall against Germany under The Energy Charter Treaty and other proceedings.

For further information, please contact:

Vattenfall’s Press Office, telephone: +46 (0)8 739 50 10, email: press@vattenfall.com

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