Verify questions Perlas Energija over financial instruments

VERT turned to the Prosecutor General's Office over a completely different issue, after looking into certain specifics of Perlas Energija's activities, and then assessing the potential risk of Perlas Energija receiving unjustified revenue from financial instruments, Pocius told reporters on Wednesday night.

The suspicion is that Perlas Energija is terminating contracts to earn revenue from other activities, the sale of financial instruments, which would be deemed unjustified revenue.

The VERT chairman said that the sale of financial products would constitute unjustified revenue for the company and is suspected of being the cause of the termination of its contracts with consumers to earn revenue from other activities.

Perlas Energija's financial instruments are used as hedging instruments that the company used to hedge against electricity price fluctuations in Finland, Pocius said.

Vilius Juraitis, CEO of Perlas Energija, confirmed on Wednesday that the company holds financial hedging instruments in several foreign countries, but he refrained from revealing specific locations.

Pocius says that the electricity supplier in Finland has the majority of such financial instruments. He said that the energy watchdog has contacted other independent suppliers to find out what financial instruments they have.

On Wednesday, VERT asked the prosecutors to bring a lawsuit against Perlas Energija to defend public interests after it announced plans to make unilateral changes to the terms of its contracts with consumers. VERT also asked prosecutors to put in place temporary restrictions on Perlas Energija's assets.

Perlas Energija announced earlier this month it was terminating its contracts with almost 180,000 customers who chose fixed-price plans and offered them the chance to pay the exchange price for electricity or choose another supplier.