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UK: Energy watchdog gets big power boost

By  |  June 7, 2013

Ofgem, the UK’s energy market watchdog, has been granted new powers. The boost in power comes as the European Commission is looking to introduce new policies to ensure transparency over energy companies, especially as accusations mounted last month over the price-fixing of Europe’s gas. Ofgem will now be allowed to issue harsher penalties on energy companies, seize data and search offices in efforts to improve the market’s transparency and crack down on deliberate market manipulation. The new powers come under what is known as the REMIT legislation, or the Regulation of Wholesale Energy Markets and Transparency, which will soon be introduced into parliament. Experts have also expressed growing concern in recent weeks and months, on top of allegations across Europe of gas price-fixing, that a scandal in the energy market could occur similar to that of the LIBOR scandal that hit the world’s banks.

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