With regard to deverticalization, the company was accelerating unbundling and outsourcing, as well as dismantling non core activities, while retaining and strengthening its core activities (e.g. design of intellectual property, trade marketing and brand management).

With the demonopolization of electricity, and the unbundling of functions such as generation, grid operation, transmission and retailing, as well as the development of financial instruments such as futures and options contracts for energy, the structure of the entire market is starting to change, thus complicating the analysis under WTO law.

In the electricity and natural gas sectors, the core of competition rules would deal with (a) the right of access to infrastructures, mainly electricity grids and gas pipelines, but also gas storage facilities and LNG terminals (b) unbundling industry segments through vertical separation of functions and (c) consumer choice, by establishing eligibility thresholds for choice of suppliers among the different classes of customers (power utilities, industrial, commercial or residential users).