The Enforcement Guidelines

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 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 published in September 2014 and October 2017. 

Updates to our Enforcement Guidelines

Since the publication of our Enforcement Guidelines in March 2022 there are changes to be aware of which we will incorporate into our Enforcement Guidelines at the next update.

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC) brings reform to both UK competition and consumer law. The Act received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. On 1 January 2025, Parts 1, 2 and 5 came into force. On 6 April 2025 Part 3 and Part 4, Chapter 1 came into force. The implementation of the remainder of the Act is planned for 2026. 

The Act makes the following changes to our enforcement of competition and consumer law regimes: 

a. the power to enforce consumer protection laws under a new court-based regime, by applying to court for enforcement orders, including monetary penalties up to 10% of global turnover, against traders (Part 3, replaces the existing regime under Part 8 of the Enterprise Act 2000); 

b. amended powers to investigate and enforce against suspected infringements of the Competition Act 1998 Chapter I (anti-competitive agreements) and II (abuse of a dominant position) prohibitions, including monetary penalties of up to 1% of global turnover or 5% of daily turnover, for failure to comply with investigatory measures or commitments; and

c. a new duty of expedition in respect of competition functions where we, along with the CMA must have regard to making a decision, or taking action, as soon as reasonably practicable.

In the application of our concurrent competition powers, we will have regard for the CMA’s environmental sustainability guidance on the application of Chapter I of the Competition Act 1998 published in October 2023.