Energy companies fined for anti-competition agreement
Image: “109”by Maggio7 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Three West Midlands energy companies have been fined £870,000 by Ofgem for breaching competition rules.
The regulator found Economy Energy and E (Gas and Electricity) had agreed not to actively target one another’s customers through face-to-face sales.
E (Gas and Electricity), based in Birmingham, was fined £650,000 while Warwickshire-based Economy Energy, which entered administration in January, was fined £200,000 – reduced because of its financial situation.
Worcester consultancy Dyball Associates was also fined £20,000 for its role in designing, implementing and maintaining software systems that allowed customer meter point details to be shared, and recruitment of each other’s customers to be blocked.
Anthony Pygram, director of conduct and enforcement at Ofgem, said: “E and Economy Energy agreed not to target each other’s customers with the assistance of Dyball Associates, leaving some customers potentially worse off by being unable to access deals from the other supplier.
“Customers should have an opportunity to switch to other suppliers and should not be prevented from doing so by anti-competitive agreements, and suppliers should all have an equal opportunity and compete on a level playing field with rivals.”
The anti-competitive agreement was in place between January and September 2016. E (Gas and Electricity) and Economy Energy put forward an argument that they were a combined family enterprise, but this was not accepted by Ofgem.
