Landmark ruling: EWE Go must offer DCS same prices as end customers

The Munich I Regional Court has ruled that charging station operator EWE Go may not charge roaming provider DCS higher prices than it charges its own end customers. The ruling is the first to clarify the anti-discrimination provision set out in the EU's AFIR regulation - and could have significant implications for the wider charging industry.

What prices are charge point operators (CPOs) allowed to charge providers of charging cards and apps for the use of their charging stations? And what regulatory provisions govern pricing? This has been the subject of a long-standing dispute between Digital Charging Solutions (DCS), the company behind charging solutions for brands including BMW and Mercedes-Benz, and EWE Go, a charging station operator. As early as February, there was a hearing at the Munich I Regional Court (link in German), which the industry watched with great interest. At its core, the case concerned B2B prices for roaming providers like DCS and their compliance with the AFIR, the EU regulation on the deployment of an infrastructure for alternative fuels, including charging stations.

On 6 October 2026, the verdict was delivered – and it could prove a landmark decision for the charging industry, potentially causing roaming prices to fall. In its (as yet non-final) ruling (Case No.: 33 O 2062/25), the Munich I Regional Court put an end to a practice that has caused discontent for years, not only among industry experts but also amongst EV drivers: chaotic pricing of charging. At charging stations, there are typically one or more contract customer prices set by the respective charging station operator (e.g., with or without subscription models), ad-hoc prices, and various roaming prices from different charging card providers.

The Munich proceedings indirectly focused primarily on roaming prices – or rather, their basis: mobility service providers (MSPs) such as Digital Charging Solutions must pay special wholesale prices to CPOs. These, in turn, form the basis for the roaming tariffs they offer to their customers.

“Discriminatory pricing” by EWE Go

Digital Charging Solutions filed a lawsuit against the charging station operator EWE Go at the Munich court, specifically alleging “discriminatory pricing”. In doing so, DCS invoked Article 5, Paragraph 3 of the AFIR, which states: “Operators of publicly accessible charging points shall not discriminate between end users and mobility service providers or between different mobility service providers through the prices they charge. Differentiation in price levels may occur, but only if it is proportionate and objectively justified.”

The lawsuit centred on an ‘Offer2All’ price – a wholesale or B2B price – of €0.837/kWh, which EWE Go had demanded from mobility providers like DCS as of the reference date of 1 January 2025. However, at the same charging station, EWE Go charged ad-hoc payers only €0.79/kWh and its own contract customers (i.e., registered users in the EWE Go app) just €0.52/kWh for the same electricity (all prices gross).

DCS also sued over a blocking fee of €0.10/minute (net), which, as of the reference date, applied only to MSPs but not to ad-hoc payers or EWE Go’s app customers.

EWE Go must charge DCS €0.52/kWh

The ruling is significant: the Munich I Regional Court prohibited EWE Go from continuing to charge the higher prices to the mobility service provider DCS. In doing so, the court explicitly included the price difference compared to EWE Go’s direct private customers, who pay only €0.52/kWh. In other words: fundamentally, EWE Go may only invoice DCS at this €0.52/kWh rate, not the significantly higher Offer2All price of €0.837/kWh. Previous interpretations of the AFIR had often only seen a prohibition of discrimination between the (often already significantly higher) ad-hoc price and the B2B price.

“The price differences at the same charging point are sometimes drastic and incomprehensible to consumers,” said Jörg Reimann, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Charging Solutions. “If a provider pays significantly more for electricity than the operator charges its own customers, it cannot offer a competitive service at that charging point. Effective application and enforcement of the AFIR’s non-discrimination rule are therefore the foundation for functional competition in the charging markets.”

Roaming prices could drop significantly

This means: DCS assumes that roaming providers could offer their customers better prices in the future if the ruling becomes final and sets a precedent for the interpretation of the AFIR. As a result, the price levels of roaming providers could move significantly closer to the original prices of charging station operators – and the usual surcharge for ad-hoc payments is also now in question.

Timo Knapheide, General Counsel of Digital Charging Solutions, stated: “The ruling answers a question that was open for the entire market: whether the AFIR’s non-discrimination rule also applies when an operator simultaneously offers its own charging tariffs. To our knowledge, there has been no judicial clarification of this issue across the EU until now.”

Justification for price surcharge not plausible

As mentioned, according to the AFIR, any difference in price levels must be objectively justified. However, the court did not find EWE Go’s justification for the significant surcharge of €0.317/kWh – or around 60 per cent – between its end customers and roaming providers like DCS to be plausible. The defendant’s attempts to justify price differences with increased administrative costs, customer service efforts, entrepreneurial risks, or contractual customer loyalty models fell flat.

In an initial response to _electrive_ regarding the ruling, EWE Go stated: “At this point in time, we must evaluate and review the reasoning of the judgment and decide how to proceed based on that. This will take some time. As the proceedings are still ongoing and the ruling is not yet final, we cannot currently comment on further details of the case.”

The court not only ruled that EWE Go’s practice does not comply with the AFIR. It also ordered EWE Go to pay damages to DCS for all damages incurred since the AFIR came into force on 13 April 2024. This could amount to several million euros, although the exact figure has not yet been determined. However, the issue of damages, like the entire ruling, is not yet final.

_Source: per email_ (Statement EWE Go), digitalchargingsolutions.com