£99,000 of civil penalties have been levied on four participants of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) for failing to provide reports on time.
The four companies, Saur (UK) Ltd, Henkel Ltd, BI Group plc and Tomkins Ltd were fined £41,000, £38,000, £10,000 and £10,000 respectively and although the fines seem steep they are set as described in the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme Order 2010. In fact in two of the cases (BI Group plc and Tomkins Ltd) discretion was exercised resulting in a reduction of the penalty imposed. These companies, the administrator judged, had taken all reasonable steps to comply or rectified the failure as soon as possible.
The reports that these companies had failed to provide were those for the first year (2010/11) of phase one, where CRC participants were obliged to provide a footprint report and an annual report by the end of July.
These penalties show that the enforcement agencies are taking non-compliance seriously, in spite of doubts about the future of the CRC.
They also serve as a reminder to participants that annual reports for the reporting year 2011/12 should have been submitted by 31st July 2012, allowances paid for by 31st July and that the allowances should be surrendered by the 28th September 2012 deadline.
