30,000 Danish power customers shifted after collapse, buyer already criticised, regulators inherit another retail mess

• A bankruptcy sale will move more than 30,000 electricity customers to a new provider.
• The lawyer handling the estate says the deal was the best available option.
• The incoming supplier has previously been criticised for pricing and fee practices.
• The case exposes how households can be transferred between companies with little room to opt out at the moment of failure.

More than 30,000 Danish electricity customers are being transferred out of a bankrupt utility group and into a new supplier through a sale arranged by the bankruptcy estate. DR reports that the company taking over those customers has itself drawn sharp criticism in earlier cases over misleading prices and hidden fees.

The lawyer responsible for the sale told DR that the transfer was the best possible solution under the circumstances. The alternative was not a clean reset for customers but the risk of disorder around supply contracts, billing and ongoing service. In retail electricity, the customer list is part of the asset base: when the company fails, households do not stop needing power, and an acquirer can step in with ready-made revenue from day one. That keeps supply running, but it also means consumers can wake up inside a new commercial relationship they did not choose.

DR says the incoming supplier has previously been criticised for pricing that looked cheaper than it was and for fees that were not obvious upfront. That matters in a market where the advertised kilowatt-hour price is only part of the bill, and where fixed charges, subscription costs and add-on fees can erase the headline discount. Denmark's electricity market is formally liberalised, with customers free to switch supplier, compare offers and shop around. The recurring clean-up work suggests a different reality: the state sets the rules, regulators police the marketing, bankruptcy lawyers move contracts in bulk, and households are left checking whether the new invoice matches the old promise.

The transfer also shows how failure is distributed. The bankrupt group sheds its obligations through insolvency proceedings. The buyer acquires tens of thousands of customers at scale. Regulators and consumer authorities are left to monitor whether the next round of contracts, notices and bills meets the rules. The household at the end of the chain gets continuity of supply, but also the burden of reading the fine print after the deal is already done.

For now, the sale keeps the lights on for more than 30,000 customers. The bill arriving next month will show what, exactly, they were sold into.

Källor: DR Nyheder