Southern Water, 90 million "paltry" fine for extreme profit by pollution.

[Mr Gus]

Remember folks a private company doesn't give a damn about you, just investor returns.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... l-unfolded

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Water

Southern Water is regulated under the Water Industry Act 1991 and since 2007 has been owned by Greensands Holdings Limited, a consortium of investors representing infrastructure investment funds, pension funds and private equity.[2] Currently the largest shareholders are JP Morgan Asset Management (40%), UBS Asset Management (22%), Hermes Infrastructure Funds (21%) and Whitehelm Capital (8%).[3]

Revenue
Increase£0.829 billion (2017–18)
£0.809 billion (2016–17)
Number of employees 2,092
Parent Southern Water Capital Ltd.

& interestingly, DAME GILLIAN GUY, OBE ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Guy

Dame Gillian Guy DBE is a British administrator who is currently the Independent Assessor of the Financial Ombudsman Service.[1] She was previously Chief Executive Officer of Citizens Advice, a charity organisation employing 7,000. She joined in 2010 from the charity Victim Support.[2] She is also a non-practitioner member of the Banking Standards Board.[3]

Clearly gives precisely zero f____ about "standards"

Come on Elizabeth 2nd, Queen of the decaying filth pile, that is the UK, strip her of everything for criminal behaviour & environmental terrorism.

Also: https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... hern-water
Gamekeeper turned poacher?

[AE-NMidlands]

I don't see how G Guy is liable or culpable, but that's how government and regulators work now. No-one is ever liable. Directors keep the money they have trousered but it seems the shareholders (might) pay the price. https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... w-analysis says

England’s water system: the last of the privatised monopolies – for now
Analysis: taking control of the utility would benefit consumers and, more importantly, the environment
...Southern Water has this week pleaded guilty to knowingly allowing “poisonous, noxious or polluting matter and/or waste matter and/or sewage effluent”, or raw sewage, to enter coastal waters.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Johnson said the company, which was fined £90m, had discharged between 16bn and 21bn litres of raw sewage into some of the most “precious and delicate ecosystems and coastlines” with a disregard “for human health, and for fisheries and other legitimate businesses that operate in the coastal waters”.

I would make all directors personally liable in perpetuity for "public and employee injury" costs.

Kent’s oyster farmers were among the most affected after their produce failed to meet safety standards. It is not known how many bathers succumbed to high levels of faecal contamination that entered the sea around the north Kent coast.
And Southern was not alone. South West Water and Thames Water are among the regional firms to have regularly been found releasing untreated sewage that they cannot cope with into rivers and the sea. Environment Agency data for 2020 showed water companies discharged raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters in England more than 400,000 times, up 37% on the previous year.

I find it astonishing that the shellfish industry in these areas was effectively shut down because of illegal faecal pollution, and that if it had not been for a few committed EA employees it would have gone unremarked and unpunished. Lots of compensation is due, let's hope the criminal injuries compensation board lives up to its name!
Welcome [back] to Britain, the dirty man of Europe - again. Absolutely shameful.

[Mr Gus]

Basically IF you wish to flaunt your recognition (questionable) CBE or whatever, you do it honestly, not as a crow bar to more riches.
If the "honour system" is to reflect that then those who sit with that recognition get stripped when the companies they represent FUBAR (knowingly & extensively as in this case).

In part why a few honest souls refuse these accolades based on a modicum of personal integrity.

Yes, ban all from directorships, advisory roles etc, dump dog faeces on their doorstep day after day to ram the point home to show the reality of what they have themselves inflicted upon the environment & the economy.

Somehow I don't think these people will ever stand in a ditch & pump effluent back into a truck, they knowingly ok'ed the dumping for profit of toxic effluent for years they need to "get real" akin to someone being put on community service, complete in flouro jumpsuits in frint of the media.

Akin to a japanese CEO grovelling with recognised humility on TV for screwing up.

There may be less of "do as I say, not as I do" as a result if we see people punished properly beyond a fine they can afford and written off as part of the initial "investment gambit"

In fact I wish someone like greenpeace did the "angry farmer spraying council offices ((read shareholders homes)) with slurry"

when do Southern Water prices rise next? have they already to absorb the anticipated fine, & how much did it cost bringing them down?

Any "victim surcharge" amongst that?
Does this mean that group action to get recompense can now go ahead from businesses & the public who have been put at risk? ..I hope so.

[spread-tee]

It's all part of the neoliberalist game plan Gus, profit is THE sole aim, service and responsibility are nowhere near the agenda. That and the fact the regulators don't have any teeth, because the GOVT haven't given them teeth, and a GOVT that doesn't give a sh1t, leaves us all in the sh1t. The press don't give a sh1t either because they are most owned by foreign billionaires who don't give a sh1t

The Great?? British sh1tstorm............


desp

[Mr Gus]

+1 Desp / spread tee-person