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Lawyers are seeking as much as £1.5 billion in compensation payouts from water companies to millions of customers.
A class action suit filed against six water companies will be heard by the Competition Appeal Tribunal in September.
Claims have been lodged against Anglian, Northumbrian, Severn Trent, Thames, United Utilities and Yorkshire on behalf of 11 million customers for alleged under-reporting of pollution incidents.
If successful, millions of households across the country could be in line for significant compensation payments.
Leigh Day solicitors – which has submitted the claims on behalf of environmental professor and consultant Carolyn Roberts – said customers could be in line for a combined pay out of between £878 million and £1.5 billion.
The upper figure is almost double the £800 million that Leigh Day originally estimated when it announced the lawsuits last year.
A joint hearing will start on 23 September at the Competition Appeal Tribunal and will determine if the six claims are suitable to proceed as “opt-out” collective claims.
Roberts said: “In England and Wales there is growing anger about the state in which sewage discharges leave our rivers and beaches.”
She added: “Water companies are required to report accurately pollution incidents as part of their legal duties and responsibilities, but it appears many such incidents go unreported.
“If these companies had correctly reported the number of pollution incidents, Ofwat would have applied performance penalties, reducing how much these companies could charge their customers. Instead, customers have been, and continue to be, overcharged, and England’s waterways continue to be polluted.
“It is imperative that the millions of billpayers impacted by the water companies’ sewage pollution and alleged overcharging are properly compensated.”
A Thames Water spokesperson said: “Thames Water is aware of the claims brought against it and other water and sewerage companies by Professor Roberts. Thames Water will defend the claims robustly.”
A spokesperson for Severn Trent previously labelled the claims as “highly speculative”, adding that they have “no merit”.
“Should pollutions ever occur, they are always reported to the Environment Agency. Any claim to the contrary is wholly and completely wrong,” the spokesperson said when the first claim was lodged in August last year.
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