Der Gleichbehandlungsbeauftragte als Regulierungshelfer im österreichischen Elektrizitätsrecht

englischThis thesis deals with the changes to the state’s tasks in the field of electricity law, where more and more private individuals (compliance officers) are being used to fulfil certain public functions, including the implementation of the energy sector’s principle of equal treatment. The concept of regulated self-regulation constitutes the theoretical framework of this study. Its introduction traces the development from services of general interest to the state’s responsibility for the fulfilment of certain functions and its responsibility of providing guarantees. In this regard, the author discusses dogmatic foundations and examines forms and commonalities of regulated self-regulation. In the main chapter of the thesis, the aforementioned theoretical framework for the concept of regulated self-regulation is applied to the field of energy law. Here, the focus lies on the arrangement of the principle of equal treatment within the field of energy law, including the regulatory instruments of unbundling and network access. The author assigns the internal compliance programme to the law, and defines its target group normatively. Using the defined terms of the compliance programmes, the author then specifies the subject’s formal frameworks and discusses important compliance provisions. The next sub-chapter examines the legal status of compliance officers and scrutinises the conditions under which they can conduct their activities and exercise their considerable powers within the energy system. Subsequently, the author depicts how various state responsibility mechanisms and the energy compliance system work together in order to reveal the state’s responsibility functions. The main chapter ends by positioning compliance officers in the categories of administrative law, and the study concludes with a summary of its results in the form of theses.