Regulated companies are subject to licensing regimes and rules that set the parameters of how they can do business in advance, including limits on the prices they can charge and the returns they can make. They engage often and in detail with their regulator throughout each price control period, and seek to build a constructive regulatory relationship. This allows price review processes, policy changes, legislative uncertainty, licence modifications, new mechanisms, and significant challenges like delivering on net zero and other environmental and sustainability targets, to be managed effectively and with a view to achieving the optimum outcome for consumers.
However, sometimes things go wrong and the issue is too significant – for the business, investors, consumers and/or other stakeholders – to go unchallenged. Companies have the right to expect fair and lawful outcomes from their regulator based on sound analysis and unbiased decision-making. Where this is not the case, companies and other stakeholders may from time-to-time need to take steps to hold regulators to account, requiring specialist legal advice and assistance.
Our team has extensive experience of advising companies facing this uncertainty, working collaboratively with them and their economic and financial advisers to navigate the regulatory framework and promote positive outcomes. We regularly support companies in developing and reviewing their business plans, critiquing policy proposals and legislative developments, responding to consultations, advising on regulatory impact assessments, and assisting with risk reviews and horizon-scanning. Members of our team have worked in house and at regulators, and understand the commercial and operational challenges of an intrusive regulatory regime. We advise companies on how to promote successful regulatory outcomes through strategic engagement and, where necessary, through dispute resolution including challenges under the Freedom of Information Act, appeals to the UK Competition and Markets Authority and applications for judicial review.
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