Green Network spent state levies as working capital — and 300,000 customers lost supply

Green Network was one of Italy's largest independent electricity and gas retailers, based in Verona. In 2019 it collected €331 million in customer bills but passed only €165 million on to its suppliers — keeping the €166 million difference, the oneri generali di sistema, the parafiscal levies that every bill carries on behalf of the state, as working capital for its own expansion.

The day of reckoning came in June 2021. The energy regulator ARERA reported the company to the Guardia di Finanza, and a Rome investigating judge ordered the preventive seizure of its shares and interdictory measures against its top executives — chairman Piero Saulli, vice-president Sabrina Corbo and general manager Giovanni Barberis — barring them from running the company. Green Network denied wrongdoing and hired former justice minister Paola Severino to defend it.

The seizure ended the growth story. Wholesale prices were spiking and the company's hedging and guarantees proved insufficient: by late November 2021 it could no longer supply its customers, who were moved to Italy's last-resort service or found new traders. On December 3, 2021, the court-appointed administrators, Iapoce and Troncarelli, filed a plan to determine whether the company could continue as a going concern or had to be sold. The €166 million shortfall was socialized: the unpaid levies were spread across everyone's bills.