The court denied the São Paulo City Council’s request for Enel to immediately restore power in the city, under penalty of a fine of R$200,000 per day.
Judge Erika Folhadella Costa, from the 2nd Civil Court of Public Finance, rejected the two main requests from Ricardo Nunes’ (MDB) management:
- That Enel immediately arrange for power restoration of the units affected by the storm;
- That Enel Let us know within 24 hours how long it took to restore power of each unit, how many teams were made available, what the composition of the teams is and how many services each team provided.
As for the third demand, for the company to share real-time data on vehicles and customer service, the judge explained that the issue is included within Enel’s Contingency Plan.
The City Hall had requested that the distributor be fined R$200,000 per day if it did not comply with the demands, if they were accepted by the Court. The decision was published this Wednesday (16).
The rejected petition was made within a public civil action by the City Hall against Enel, which has been ongoing since November 2023 at the São Paulo Court of Justice.
Despite the rejection, the judge decided that Enel must comply with a series of determinations relating to previous requests from the City Hall.
See the most important measurements below.
- Let Enel prove proper management of all trees which ENEL itself included in its 2023 Annual Pruning Planwithin 60 days, under penalty of a fine of R$1,000 per tree, per day that has not received management.
- May Enel carry out appropriate management of all trees that have expired requests in the subprefectural systems, outstanding for more than 90 days . The deadline for completion is 30 days, under penalty of a daily fine of R$1,000 for each unfulfilled request.
- That Enel update your system within 5 days with the pruning carried out within the Annual Planning and those carried out in response to requests from sub-prefectures. The penalty is fine of R$100 thousand plus R$10,000 for each month of delay.
- That Enel participate collaboratively with the Municipal Secretariat of Urban Security to implement a Conflict Map between the electrical grid and urban trees permanently updated.
- May Enel be ordered to repair material collective environmental damage based on criteria to be established in the settlement procedure
- That Enel compensate São Paulo society for collective environmental damage due to the concessionaire’s recurring failures to manage conflicts between urban trees and electrical transmission lines.
The Court also ruled and ordered Enel to make adjustments to the company’s Contingency Plan. Changes must be made within 10 days, under penalty of a fine of R$500,000.
Among the adjustments are: strategies that consider the more than 650,000 trees on public roads in the city and the propensity for intense storms, forecasts for restoring power in less than 24 hours in places affected by falling trees and forecasts for biannual combat simulations to adverse weather events.
The judge highlighted that the obligations imposed on Enel must come from joint action between the company and the City Hall. Mainly in relation to tree management and reducing risks to society.
The court decision is still subject to appeal by the parties. THE CNN contacted São Paulo City Hall and Enel, and is awaiting a response.
This content was originally published in Justice denies City Hall’s request for immediate restoration of power by Enel on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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