«Illegitimate»: Abbanoa cannot resort to tax injunctions to recover credits claimed against users. It cannot therefore block current accounts and demand payment within 30 days of often very significant sums, with the “threat” of forced execution. It is not entitled to do so: this is stated in a ruling of the Court of Lanusei of October 16, which ruled in favor of a consumer who, in 2019, received an injunction for 2,508.28 euros. NC, from Tortolì, had turned to the lawyer Sabina Biancu (who is also president of Adoc Ogliastra), who first won before the Justice of the Peace, then defeated Abbanoa, which had filed an appeal to the ordinary Court.
Possible appeal
The legal case may not be over: the Spa dell'acqua has already announced that it will evaluate the appeal of the verdict, underlining that «the sentence does not create jurisprudence and remains applied to the individual case. On tax injunctions, a tool that Abbanoa uses in extreme cases to recover what is due for the regularly guaranteed service, there are now numerous provisions of the Courts that confirm their legitimacy». In this case, however, the outcome was the opposite.
The tax injunction is an extreme, particularly aggressive instrument that public bodies use in the case of multiple defaulters and when all attempts to recover the amount claimed have failed: from friendly notices to registered letters.
In his first appeal, the lawyer Biancu had argued that Abbanoa had asked his client for money for expired bills and that, above all, the water service manager is not a public body, even if it is an in-house company controlled by the Region and Municipalities, and therefore cannot use the weapon of injunctions. His thesis was accepted first by the Justice of the Peace and then by the Court.
The sentence
Judge Giada Rutili writes that the tax injunction can only be used by "the State, territorial bodies and other public bodies" and by "those specifically established through subsequent provisions that similarly allow the direct forced collection of particular revenues". While the rule that establishes it "cannot be applied to different and additional subjects, not expressly contemplated, for the collection of credits generated in the inter-private sphere". And there is a contract between Abbanoa and the users. Therefore the "tax injunctions issued by the concessionary companies of the water service (...) can only be said to be illegitimate".
Abbanoa is sure they are in the right anyway: "The company was authorized by the Ministry of Economy and Finance", it is explained in a note, according to which "the legitimacy of this authorization was recognized first of all by the TAR, which already in April 2016 rejected a request for suspension of the authorization to issue tax injunctions by a consumer association. Another association saw its request to inhibit the use of the injunction tool rejected". The company concludes: "The judges have emphasized on several occasions the correctness of the manager's debt collection actions".
