Retail Market
Hot on the heels of widespread annoyance over energy suppliers’ mythical profits, comes a new report from the Centre for Policy Studies saying that the price cap is stifling energy market competition and costing consumers money. In fact, this is just the latest in [...]
Last week Centrica announced its interim results, which saw British Gas profits increase tenfold, setting off predictable outrage from the media and politicians. Journalists have been falling over themselves to criticise the company, and in particular the fact that much of this “windfall” is [...]
I have frequently been critical of Ofgem in its regulation of the retail energy sector, advocating for the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) to take over, so it has been deeply disappointing to see the extent to which the FCA has been asleep at the [...]
On 25 May, Ofgem announced the new price cap level that will apply from 1 July. The cap level is to fall from £3,280 now to £2,074 for a typical dual fuel household. Of course, consumers currently benefit from the Energy Price Guarantee ("EPG"), [...]
For the past year Ofgem has been trying to address concerns around the financial resilience of energy suppliers after half of them went bankrupt in late 2021 following the rapid increase in wholesale prices. Ofgem has been strongly criticised for allowing suppliers to enter [...]
Back in February The Times published an exposé into the forced installation of pre-payment meters ("PPMs") by British Gas among others. The article created a huge scandal, putting British Gas in particular in the cross-hairs of politicians, the media and Ofgem. However, I had [...]
Two weeks ago I summarised the hearings held in late February before the Administrative Court in the application for a judicial review of sale of Bulb Energy to Octopus Energy in a deal involving a subsidy worth up to £4.5 billion. I concluded that: [...]
At the end of February I attended five of the six sessions of the application for a judicial review (“JR”) of the decision to sell Bulb to Octopus Energy which was heard in the Administrative Court. Since I missed the final session I had [...]
Today Centrica announced record profits of £3.3 billion (actually the company booked a statutory loss after revaluing its hedging book, but this is an accounting quirk due – more of which later). The outrage has been predictable with the company being accused of profiteering [...]
The Octopus takeover of Bulb which was announced in November is now subject to a legal challenge from a group of the company’s rivals who argue that it received preferential treatment from the Government. Bulb collapsed in November 2021 and was placed into Special [...]