Lid must be lifted on aborted Ofgem probe into big six
Two weeks ago, the government issued a flurry of energy policies. Media platforms from the national broadsheets to Twitter were abuzz with chatter about the capacity mechanism, the renewables strike price, the estimates that 40 trillion cubic metres of shale gas lie beneath the north of England. So no-one noticed when, the day after, Ofgem slipped out a drily worded announcement concerning "the closure of [an] investigation under the Competition Act". It was closing the investigation on the grounds of "administrative priority", it said. Or, to put it another way, Ofgem was dropping a cartel investigation into the big six because it had more important things to do.
