Consultation outcome

Strengthening enforcement in gas and electricity markets

From:: Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
Published: 18 December 2015
Last updated: 1 February 2018 — See all updates

Download the full outcome

Consultation on proposed changes to Ofgem's enforcement powers under the EU REMIT Regulation: government response

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Detail of outcome

The government response was published on 1 February 2018 and sets out the government’s decision on Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) following consultation, and how these decisions will be implemented.

Decisions on the other proposals will be taken at a later date.

REMIT

The government’s conclusion is that there are clear benefits from bringing forward additional powers for Ofgem to make the market work better for consumers overall. Specifically we will bring forward:

a flexible new power for Ofgem to investigate market abuse by allowing it to remove documents from premises and sift these elsewhere to establish whether they are relevant to an investigation
a new gateway for public authorities to disclose relevant information to Ofgem

We will therefore proceed with introducing the powers as described through secondary legislation.

Detail of feedback received

The government received 15 responses to its proposals relating to REMIT.

Original consultation

Consultation description

Experience has shown that some of the current provisions in gas and electricity legislation do not work as well as originally intended, restricting Ofgem’s ability to regulate as effectively as it might. This paper sets out proposals to refine Ofgem’s powers so it is better equipped to investigate possible non-compliance and take action to protect consumers.

The proposed measures are:

New time limits for compliance orders so Ofgem has more time to complete investigations and can make better use of these orders.
Wider powers to request information from businesses so it can establish whether they are committing an offence by supplying gas or electricity without a licence.
A broader statutory ability for Ofgem to require licensed businesses to engage skilled persons who will investigate and report on compliance-related matters on its behalf.
A flexible new power for Ofgem to investigate market abuse by allowing it to remove documents from premises and sift these elsewhere to establish whether they are relevant to the investigation and a new gateway for the Competition and Markets Authority to disclose relevant information to Ofgem.
A new ability for Ofgem to impose penalties on businesses with little or no turnover so it has an effective deterrent to use in such cases.

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