London – The largest water company in Great Britain received a fine of almost 123 million pounds ($ 166 million) on Wednesday by Release wastewater in rivers and streams while paying dividends to your shareholders.
The Wat industry regulator said Water Thames It must pay 104.5 million pounds for not protecting the environment and 18.2 million pounds for the rules of rupture related to dividend payments. It is the largest penalty imposed by the guard dog of the water.
Ofwat said that the company, which provides water and wastewater services to 16 million people in London and its surroundings, failed to build, maintain and operate an adequate infrastructure to fulfill its obligations “and also paid” undeserved dividends. “
The United Kingdom government said the fines “will be paid by the company and its investors, and not by customers.”
Thames Water is in the center of national anger due to wastewater spills that have committed lakes, rivers and beaches at a time when water and wastewater companies are walking through invoices to modernize aging systems and dealing with the demands of climate change and population growth.
The company with liquidity problems has staggered at the edge of insolvency below approximately 19 billion pounds of debt. He won the Court’s approval in March for 3 billion pounds in emergency financing to prevent it from falling in government administration.
He is currently trying to make a sale to the US investment firm KKR.
Consumers and politicians have criticized the company, arguing that Thames Water created their own problems by paying too generous dividends to investors and high wages to executives while investing in pipes, bombs and reservoirs. The company’s executives say that the failure falls to the regulators, which kept the invoices too low for too long, hunger hungry for the vital cash company to finance improvements.
“We take our responsibility to the environment very seriously and observe that OFWAT acknowledges that we have already progressed to address the problems raised in research related to storm overflows,” said Thames Water in a statement.
“The dividends were declared after consideration of the company’s legal and regulatory obligations. Our lenders continue to support our liquidity position and our capital increase process continues.”
