Enel Energia SpA

What happened

Italy's Garante fined Enel Energia, one of Italy's largest energy suppliers, €26.5 million for unlawful telemarketing activities conducted through a network of external agencies and call centers. The investigation found that Enel Energia's contractors made millions of unsolicited promotional calls using contact lists obtained without valid consent. Consumers who had not consented to marketing — and even those who had explicitly opted out — continued to receive unwanted calls. The company failed to adequately supervise its network of telemarketing agents and did not implement effective mechanisms to verify consent or honor opt-out requests across its supply chain of marketing partners.

Articles violated

Lessons learned

Energy companies and utilities using telemarketing must implement end-to-end consent verification across their entire contractor network. The controller cannot delegate compliance responsibility to third-party marketing agencies. Regular audits of contractor practices, suppression list management, and consent verification are essential. When fines reach this scale, they demonstrate that regulators view systematic telemarketing violations as intentional non-compliance rather than isolated incidents.