Legal Control of the Regulation of Water Supply and Sewage During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The regulation of public utilities, both in normal scenarios and in the current atypical circumstances of pandemic, must seek to harmonize all interests present in such markets and to ensure both the social and economic dimensions of these services. However, the regulatory measures adopted in the markets of water supply and sewage to address and manage the COVID-19 pandemic seem to have disproportionately favored its social dimension, increasing the risks of damaging the economic aspect and the interests of service providers. In this context, judicial and non-judicial control becomes an important tool to verify whether the measures of immediate reconnection, deferred payment, prohibition of suspension and/or cut-off, and the impossibility of rate increase, adopted as a result of this crisis, respected the parameters of validity and effectiveness that guide the exercise of regulatory powers.