FiT Legal Ruling

[whinmoor]

Interesting development. Not good news for anyone except the 14 claimants and the lawyers.

High Court rules in favour of solar companies? £132 million damages claim against DECC | Solar Power Portal

 

[SibertSolar]

DECC will appeal, of course...

 

[Gavin A]

if DECC lose and end up handing over that level of cash to a tiny number of companies they'd potentially have the cash to wipe out a lot of their competition on pricing, and really go for volume and the efficiency savings that would entail if they chose to.

Or they could retire on the proceeds.

I can't see how anything over a few hundred thousand could be justified as being direct consequences of the unlawful government actions, we're talking 2 months loss of trade, but over the worst 2 months of the year, and with most companies able to shoehorn most of those installations into the mad rush 6 weeks prior to the cuts.

The figures really don't compute for me.

 

[Gavin A]

If this is successful though, presumably this will open it up for a second wave of companies to apply for compensation, possibly with a standardised format beign agreed as happened with PPI miss selling etc.

The problem being that the treasury won't give DECC any more money, so any payouts will get clawed back one way or another.

 

[Marvo]

.....I can't see how anything over a few hundred thousand could be justified as being direct consequences of the unlawful government actions, ......
The figures really don't compute for me.

I wouldn't be surprised if 50% of the figure or maybe more will end up in the lawyers pockets.

 

[SolarCity]

Surely this should mean Greg Barker's job? What an astonishing amount of money.

 

[confounded]

If this is successful though, presumably this will open it up for a second wave of companies to apply for compensation, possibly with a standardised format beign agreed as happened with PPI miss selling etc.

The problem being that the treasury won't give DECC any more money, so any payouts will get clawed back one way or another.

Quite possible, could make people who Phoenixed their company a bit sick.

 

[whinmoor]

Lots of cash involved here. I guess it makes sense for DECC to appeal as it's relatively peanuts compared to the amount at stake. What's another million when you stand to lose £132 million already? Oh, but it's taxpayers' money anyway so doesn't really matter. Appealing may make it run into next year and past the election.

I wonder how the companies managed to convince the judge that they lost so much.

 

[BruceB]

Presumably we have 6 years from Dec 2011 to jump on the bandwagon?

 

[The Solar King]

The names of the complainants seems to read like a rent a roof role call. I hope DECC do appeal and win. Surely they can only be looking at the window of time between the original judgement against DECC which delayed the FIT reduction and it's actual reduction.

The real concern is about how payment of damages would be funded.

This could drag on for years, and I hope it does.

 

[TedM]

From my reading of the reported judgement it is in principle only. Whether anyone gets their hands on £132 million (or a much lesser sum) remains to be decided. And DECC will appeal in any case.

 

[whinmoor]

The names of the complainants seems to read like a rent a roof role call.

I don't think Solarlec do RaR. We were up against their £8.5k quotation for a standard 4kW install recently. The customer showed me their paperwork. Apparently the salesman hadn't bothered to go in the loft...

 

[The Solar King]

Is that don't do or didn't do?

 

[whinmoor]

Is that don't do or didn't do?

I don't think they've ever done RaR. I could be wrong though.

I just had a look at their Facebook page offering a £500 discount voucher!

I'm pretty certain they will do "finance options", staggered payments and various other deals - possibly including interest-free packages.

 

[The Solar King]

I thought RECC code forbade discounts over £200.00 or am I out of date?

 

[The Solar King]

Whilst not is favour of this class action, it should be remembered DECC hardly covered themselves in glory in all of this. The basis of a large part of their original argument was that keeping FITs as they were, and doing nothing would cost bill payers £50.00 each. It was later shown that this was less than £1.00 and no one was suggesting doing nothing.

They had been warned as early as May 2011 by the STA that there was an imminent danger of the FITs budget running out of control and that a reduction was needed. This could have been done in an orderly manner avoiding the debacle that followed in October when panic set in, but we were ignored.


Their grasp and interpretation of maths is interesting to say the least. I sat in one meeting with DECC officials who were completely in awe of the fact so many of the cabinet were millionaires, as if this was some form of qualification for good governance. More likely they are robber barons who have been trying to teach DECC their kind of maths, with little success.