One may end up in the list of companies with energy audit obligation for no reason
Several members contacted the Chamber of Commerce concerning a letter, informing them of the intention to include them in the list of companies with energy audit obligation, sent to them by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. According to the letter, the list is based on the form chosen by the company for the compilation of the annual report: if the company has chosen the form of a large enterprise, it is considered to be included in the list. To be excluded from the list, the company must send a letter to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and explain why it should not be included in the list.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications justifies the use of the form of the annual report with the fact that the form of a large enterprise must be filled by companies which economic indicators are the same as those used previously for compiling the lists. However, it has not been taken into account that the form of a large company can be used by other companies for practical reasons: for example, banks are interested in more detailed information than what can be filled in the form of small and medium-sized companies.
The data can also be found without the help of companies
The Chamber considers that the compilation of the list of companies with energy audit obligation should only be based on figures, i.e., on the number of employees and annual turnover / balance sheet, rather than the choice of the annual report form. The list of companies should be checked by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications – the relevant data are available from the databases and the number of large companies included in the list is not so large that controlling their membership or non-membership would be too burdensome for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.
In the light of the above, the Chamber requested the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications to recheck who is intended to be added to the list with the obligation to produce an energy audit, to stop companies from being listed on the basis other than the figures above, and to notify the companies that mistakenly received the letter that they indeed have no obligation to prepare an energy audit.
The Ministry believes that everything is right
In its reply, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications said that although since 2017 the commercial register determines the commercial category for every company, this indication may not correspond to reality. The motivation for choosing a report form may be the presence of certain boxes in the form of a large company; in addition, not all companies submit annual reports in a timely manner or do not consolidate the data of the affiliated companies according to the guide for the designation of small and medium companies. Thus, using only the annual reports, some large companies will be excluded from the list. Therefore, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications decided to inform all potential companies of the energy audit list in writing, and to wait for their feedback by e-mail. Companies that informed the Ministry of their non-inclusion were removed from the list.
The Chamber of Commerce still believes that the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, having access to the data, can compile the correct list itself. Whether there are any specific boxes for choosing a report can be easily checked from the annual report. The period between the closing date for the submission of annual report and the compilation of the list of companies with energy audit obligation is more than half a year. As large companies, for which failure to submit timely report to the commercial register is a reputational risk, are included in the list of companies with actual energy audit obligation, the probability is very small that they have not submitted the annual report to the commercial register within this period. If such a rare case were to occur, such companies would also be the only ones to receive a letter from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. If a company has not carried out the consolidation of affiliated companies can also be checked from the annual report.