The Enforcement Guidelines
Guidance
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As part of Ofgem’s duty to regulate the way in which businesses in the energy sector behave, it is important that we can act swiftly and decisively to put things right if businesses fail to meet their obligations, including where they demonstrate poor behaviours or conduct.
The Enforcement Guidelines describe how we may use our enforcement powers and tools in situations relating to breaches and infringements, how our decision-making process works, how we will provide redress and remedies for consumers, and how breaches or infringements will be addressed and deterred.
The guidelines also set out a number of enforcement tools we may use as an alternative to exercising our statutory enforcement powers.
The aim of these guidelines is to provide greater clarity, consistency and transparency to our enforcement policies and processes and to describe the framework we have in place to maximise the impact and efficiency of our work.
This version of the Guidelines came into effect on 23 March 2022, replacing previous versions first published in September 2014 and October 2017.
The CMA’s environmental sustainability guidance on the application of Chapter I of the Competition Act 1998
On 12 October 2023 the Competition and Markets Authority (‘CMA’) published Guidance on the application of Chapter I of the Competition Act 1998 to environmental sustainability agreements (‘the CMA’s environmental sustainability guidance’).
Under section 54 of the Competition Act 1998, the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority (Ofgem) has concurrent powers to enforce competition law in respect of the electricity and gas industries in Great Britain, and certain connected / ancillary activities.
Ofgem will have regard for the CMA’s environmental sustainability guidance in the application of our concurrent competition powers.