Velkommen customer sale draws scrutiny, Danish retailers say they were not asked to bid, oversight questions widen

• DR surveyed electricity companies and found none said they had been invited to bid on Velkommen’s customers.
• An attorney involved in the process said he had contacted at least one market participant.
• The episode raises questions about sale terms, ownership links and whether regulators examined competition or consumer-protection risks.
• When retail suppliers fail, customers do not disappear; their contracts, data and payment flows become assets for someone else.

None of the electricity companies contacted in a DR survey said they had been invited to bid for the customers of the troubled Velkommen group, reopening scrutiny of a market where failed suppliers can still produce valuable assets. In DR’s reporting, the criticism is simple: a large customer sale appears to have moved ahead without the broad auction process that a competitive retail market would suggest.

The dispute is not about wires, power plants or grid access. It is about customer books: households tied to billing systems, contracts, consumption histories and future revenue. When an electricity retailer runs into trouble, those customers still need a supplier, and the transfer can happen quickly. That speed may protect continuity for households, but it also concentrates value in a process few outsiders can inspect. DR reports that an attorney said he had contacted at least one market participant, yet the companies included in the broadcaster’s roundtable said they had not been invited to bid.

That gap matters because Denmark’s retail electricity market has spent years telling consumers that competition disciplines prices and service. If distressed customer portfolios are sold through narrow contacts rather than open bidding, the market works one way when customers sign up and another when a supplier fails. The upside from a collapse can then accrue to whoever is inside the process early enough, while households are left with little say over who takes over their contracts. The public-facing part is consumer choice; the back-end part is a transfer market most consumers never see.

The next questions are concrete. Who owned what across the Velkommen companies and the buyer side, what liabilities followed the customers, and on what terms were the books valued? Did the Danish Utility Regulator or competition authorities review whether the sale reduced rivalry or created consumer-protection risks? Were customers merely moved to a new billing logo, or were price terms, fees and contract conditions altered along the way? A market can be formally open and still run its most valuable moments through a very small room.

Velkommen’s customers still needed electricity the morning after the group’s troubles became public. The unanswered question is who got the list, at what price, and who else never received the call.

Källor: DR Nyheder