still researching the Neo-Con Zionist siht Keir Starmer. He started being DPP and head of the CPS in 2005, there were two other Neo-Con Zionist sihts in charge of the government and Met Police then.
Is there a change between being concerned with human rights and then DPP and CPS? I think that I’ve got it actually & it applies to the 3 NCZ sihts.
Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
Energy companies received more than 700,000 complaints about their treatment of debt-ridden customers over the last five years, openDemocracy can reveal.
In the last year alone, the energy regulator Ofgem was made aware of 40,000 complaints relating to the controversial forced fitting or disconnecting of pre-payment meters.
Yet the watchdog was only forced into action earlier this month when an undercover Times investigation found British Gas had sent bailiffs to break into vulnerable people’s homes and fit the meters by force. Following the expose, it suspended the practice until the end of March.
Centrica, the owner of British Gas, announced today that its profit had hit £3.3bn for 2022 – more than triple the £948m it made in 2021 – just weeks after the regulator launched an investigation into its use of bailiffs against at-risk customers.
Now, data obtained by openDemocracy through a Freedom of Information request has revealed for the first time the scale of alleged mistreatment of vulnerable customers since the energy price cap was first hiked in April.
“Ofgem has known about this crisis for years, and so have the companies themselves. Suppliers are not being honest when they act like they’ve just discovered it and they’re shocked, like the CEO of Centrica did,” Ruth London, co-founder of the Fuel Poverty Action campaign group, told openDemocracy.
Energy companies are required to report the number of complaints they receive from customers every month to Ofgem. Last year, they received 161,103 complaints related to disconnection and debt issues – of which 40,458 were about pre-payment meters – though Ofgem has consistently refused to tell us which suppliers received the most.
The category includes complaints from customers about their energy supply being disconnected or having a prepayment meter installed forcibly without a warrant or despite them being vulnerable.
Other examples of complaints include customers being disconnected by error or without due process and being put on debt repayment plans that are unsuitable or unaffordable.
The true number of people being ill-treated is likely to be much higher. Ofgem revealed at the beginning of February that customers were being left on hold for hours by energy companies, leading to more than half hanging up before they could report an issue.
Ofgem said revealing how many complaints different companies had received would breach Section 105 of the 2000 Utilities Act, which states that the public disclosure of information companies supply to the regulator is prohibited in order to protect national security. The law has previously been criticised for preventing whistleblowers from raising issues about the energy sector that are in the public interest.
The regulator said after the British Gas scandal broke that it was “unacceptable” to forcibly install prepayment meters before all other options had been exhausted.
But charities have criticised it for ignoring calls to end the practice for months.
“Lives have been and are being lost because of their silence and refusal to act on the truth they have long known,” said London.
Clare Moriarty, the chief executive of Citizens Advice, said it “should not have taken this long” for Ofgem to act.
The charity said it saw more people unable to afford to top up their pre-payment metre last year than for the entirety of the previous decade combined.
The Times reported that British Gas customers who had prepayment meters forcibly installed had included a woman in her 50s who the company’s bailiffs were told had severe mental health problems and a mother whose “daughter is disabled and has a hoist and electric wheelchair”.
The paper’s undercover investigation also alleged that the Arvato Financial Solutions employees were incentivised with bonuses to fit prepayment meters. The boss of British Gas owner Centrica apologised and said he was “disappointed, livid and gutted”.
Last year, a non-executive director at the regulator resigned saying Ofgem had “not struck the right balance between the interests of consumers and interests of suppliers”.
Peter Smith, policy director at the charity National Energy Action, said: “The recent announcement by major suppliers that they would temporarily pause forced installations of pre-payment meters is welcome, but this was prompted by public shaming of suppliers and there is still no market-wide ban.
“We also desperately need a coherent plan to help millions of people already trapped on prepayment meters. This means rewiring the energy market to provide more affordable tariffs and finding new ways to address the underlying debt issues which are rife due to soaring energy costs.”
Richard Lane, Director of External Affairs at StepChange Debt Charity, said: “We welcome Ofgem’s move to suspend the forced installation of prepayment meters (PPMs), but it’s clear that thousands of households have been struggling with energy bills for some time now, which is evident in our own client data.
“For the people that have already been moved onto PPMs, there must be better protection to prevent self-disconnection and extreme energy rationing.”
Updated, 16 February 2023: This story has been amended to include fresh data obtained through freedom of information law on the number of complaints notified to Ofgem between 2018 and 2022. Previously, it just contained data for 10 months of 2022.
Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
I’ve always been a Socialist but never been a Labour Party member. I strongly object to the Neo-Con Keir Starmer posing as a Socialist and will campaign against him and the Labour Party which he has authority over.
Original article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog according to its republishing agreement.
Series: CLIMATE CHANGE LAWSUITS
Shell’s board of directors officially has been served with a world-first lawsuit aiming to hold its corporate directors personally liable for alleged mismanagement of climate risk. The lawsuit, filed Thursday by UK-based environmental law organization ClientEarth, contends that Shell’s strategy to address climate change and manage the energy transition fails to align with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and leaves the company in a vulnerable position as society shifts away from fossil fuels.
ClientEarth alleges that inadequate climate strategy by Shell and improper management by the board amounts to violations under the UK Companies Act. ClientEarth, itself a token shareholder in Shell, filed its case in the High Court of England and Wales in London and is suing the company’s 11 directors. Institutional investors with collective holdings of over 12 million shares in Shell are supporting the legal action, which comes on the heels of Shell reporting a record $40 billion in profits in 2022.
“Shell may be making record profits now due to the turmoil of the global energy market, but the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels long term,” ClientEarth senior lawyer Paul Benson said. “The shift to a low-carbon economy is not just inevitable, it’s already happening. Yet the Board is persisting with a transition strategy that is fundamentally flawed, leaving the company seriously exposed to the risks that climate change poses to Shell’s future success — despite the Board’s legal duty to manage those risks.”
This is the first ever case targeting a company’s board over its handling of climate risk and alleged failure to prepare for the energy transition. As DeSmog previously reported, it is likely just the beginning of such litigation against corporate directors.
ClientEarth initiated this new lawsuit last year when it gave notice to Shell’s board of its intention to sue and is the latest in a string of legal actions seeking to hold the oil major accountable for its alleged climate and environmental misdeeds. Earlier this month the environmental and corporate accountability group Global Witness lodged a greenwashing complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claiming that Shell was misleading investors and authorities on its renewable energy spending.
That complaint came just days after more than 11,300 individuals and 17 institutions from the heavily polluted Nigerian community of Ogale sued Shell in the UK High Court, adding to existing legal claims filed in 2015 by 2,335 residents of the Nigerian community of Bille — bringing the total to over 13,000 people from the Niger Delta taking Shell to court. These claims are demanding damages from oil spills that have devastated the local communities and their environment.
And in May 2021 the Dutch chapter of Friends of the Earth, Milieudefensie, won a landmark climate court case against Shell claiming the company’s business was not aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goals and human rights obligations. The court ordered Shell to slash emissions across its entire supply chain by 45 percent by 2030. Shell is appealing the verdict and appears to be ignoring its duty to comply, as the company has publicly committed to reducing only part of its supply chain emissions — not those released from using their products — by 2030 while continuing to invest in new oil and gas development.
According to ClientEarth, Shell’s board “has since rebuffed parts of the verdict, indicating that it is unreasonable and essentially incompatible with Shell’s business.” The case against Shell’s board of directors aims to compel the company to comply with the Dutch court verdict and with its legal obligations under the UK Companies Act. Additionally, Shell faces a raft of climate lawsuits in the U.S. brought by states and municipalities over its alleged deception and efforts to derail meaningful climate action despite advanced knowledge of climate risks decades ago.
In response to the new lawsuit targeting the company’s directors, Shell denied that it has acted improperly and said it would oppose ClientEarth’s efforts to pursue its claim through the court.
“We do not accept ClientEarth’s allegations. Our directors have complied with their legal duties and have, at all times, acted in the best interests of the company,” a Shell spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
“We believe our climate targets are aligned with the more ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement: to limit the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” the spokesperson continued. “Our shareholders strongly support the progress we are making on our energy transition strategy, with 80% voting in favour of this strategy at our last Annual General Meeting. ClientEarth’s attempt, by means of a derivative claim, to overturn the board’s policy as approved by our shareholders has no merit.”
While Shell claims to support the Paris Agreement and says it will achieve net zero emissions by 2050, internal corporate communications obtained through subpoena by a U.S. congressional committee suggest that the company has no intention to genuinely pursue these objectives.
According to documents released in September by the U.S. House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into Big Oil and climate disinformation, Shell privately urged caution in communicating about the energy transition due to litigation risk.
In an internal company slide deck on messaging around the energy transition, Shell clarifies that the net zero emissions goal is a “collective” ambition and challenge for society and is not a Shell goal or target. The company states that it “has no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio over our investment horizon of 10-20 years.”
Shell further advised its employees to refrain from suggesting the company would take climate action that risked its fundamental business strategy, writing: “Please do not give the impression that Shell is willing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to levels that do not make business sense.”
In ClientEarth’s view, the oil giant’s failure to advance its own transition to net zero will only harm the company in the long run. “Long term, it is in the best interests of the company, its employees and its shareholders — as well as the planet — for Shell to reduce its emissions harder and faster than the Board is currently planning,” Benson said.
The High Court will next decide if it grants permission for ClientEarth’s case to proceed.
Original article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog according to its republishing agreement.