Ofgem’s enforcement decision panel (EDP) took action against just one company during 2017/18 but expects to make “significantly more decisions” in the next 12 months.
The regulator has a “busy enforcement pipeline” for the coming year, the EDP said in its latest annual report.
During the period, the panel issued a settlement mandate to E (Gas and Electricity) for its failure to comply with standard licence conditions including the sales and marketing objective and arrangements for site access.
The energy supplier agreed to pay £260,000 to Ofgem’s voluntary redress fund and the case was closed in January 2018.
E (Gas and Electricity) will be considered by the EDP “in due course” in relation to allegations that it breached competition law along with Economy Energy and consultancy firm Dyball Associates. Ofgem issued a statement of objections to the three parties in May this year.
In a foreward to its annual report chairman John Swift QC said the reduction in the number of cases that required attention from the EDP in 2017/18 was due to the “sequencing of cases being managed by the enforcement team”.
He said: “However, the EDP understands that Ofgem has a busy enforcement pipeline and expects to make significantly more decisions in the next 12 months than in the previous 12 months.”
Since its formation in 2014 the EDP has collected a total of £132,750,001 in penalties and redresses.
During 2014/15, it made 11 settlement decisions totalling just under £66 million, while the 2015/16 period saw eight settlements totalling almost £53 million and £14 million was collected in 2016/17.
The EDP takes enforcement decisions on behalf of the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority (GEMA), to which it is directly accountable. It is involved in decision making in three main ways: contest panels, settlement committees and criminal cases.
Its scope includes enforcing breaches under the Gas Act 1986, the Electricity Act 1989, the Utilities Act 2000, the Competition Act 1998, the Enterprise Act 2002, the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the European wide Regulation on Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT).