The first collective class action is being brought against six English water companies for failing to properly report sewage spills and pollution incidents, which breaches the competition law for failing to report discharges which would have affected the price they can charge for customers.
Prof Carolyn Roberts, an environmental and water consultant represented by the law firm Leigh Day, is bringing the claims at the competition tribunal on behalf of more than 20 million people who are the customers of the water companies. The claim states that water firms have failed to reveal the true scale of raw sewage discharges and pollution incidents that would affect the price they can charge for their services and abuse their position as private monopolies.
Any breaches to environmental permits for the operation of sewage plants and the number of pollution incidents take part in determining the price they can charge for their services, which the claims allege have been too high for the quality of service that was delivered, resulting in overcharging, in some cases to hundreds of millions of pounds.
If the claim is successful, anyone who has paid a water bill since April 2020 to one of the six companies subject to the claim may be entitled to compensation. The value of the claim against Severn Trent Water, which is the first of six parallel claims being brought, is estimated to exceed £330m, and if the claims against other companies are also successful, that could lead to compensation payments of more than £800m.
Prof Roberts, who has been researching rivers since the 1970s said: "The last two decades have been catastrophic for rivers and I want something done about it.
"The population of the UK has a right to expect that our rivers, lakes and seas will generally be clean, except under exceptional circumstances.
"It appears that because of the serial and serious under reporting at the heart of these claims, water companies have been avoiding being penalised by Ofwat. I believe this has resulted in consumers being unfairly overcharged for sewage services."
Partner at the law firm Leigh Day, Zoë Mernick-Levene said: "Not only is compensation being sought for millions of customers who have, and continue to, pay higher water bills, but we hope that it will also send a message to water companies that they cannot unlawfully pollute waterways and mislead their regulators without consequence.
"Customers put their trust in water companies, believing that they are correctly reporting these spillages and appropriately treating the sewage so it can safely be returned to the environment. Instead, our client believes they are misleading their regulators and customers are overpaying while England's waterways are suffering as a result."
