CMA remedies ‘could make things worse’, warns First Utility

The Competition and Markets Authority “missed an opportunity” with its energy market investigation, and its remedies could have a “counter effect” on the market, the UK’s largest independent supplier First Utility has warned.

The supplier’s chief customer officer Ed Kamm told Utility Week: “We clearly feel like the CMA has missed the mark… We are deeply dissatisfied as this is a missed opportunity. 

“It is going to have a counter impact and actually make things worse.”

Kamm expressed concern that the remedies relating to price comparison websites could cause some distrust between suppliers, and that issues could arise from the timing of some of the remedies.

“The really frustrating thing is I think they correctly identified the problem but haven’t delivered the solutions to tackle it.

“We spend nearly three years investigating this and we come up with solutions that aren’t strong enough,” he added.  

Kamm described the timing as “baffling”, as some of the benefits will not come into effect until the end of the implementation timeframe.

First Utility previously challenged the CMA on its figures in March this year, when it published its provisional remedies and claimed that the big six suppliers overcharged customers by £1.7 billion per year. The supplier claimed that this figure was “too low”, and was more likely to be as much as £3.4 billion.

In its final report published today (24 June), the CMA amended the figure to £1.4 billion which could have been saved in a fully competitive market.