Ofwat hits ailing Thames Water with £40m fine over dividend payment
https://news.sky.com/story/ofwat-hits-ailing-thames-water-with-16340m-fine-over-dividend-payment-13146393
Posted by IXMCMXCII
Ofwat hits ailing Thames Water with £40m fine over dividend payment
https://news.sky.com/story/ofwat-hits-ailing-thames-water-with-16340m-fine-over-dividend-payment-13146393
Posted by IXMCMXCII
4 Comments
What a lie of a headline.
More accurate: Ofwat could theoretically fine Thames Water, but hasn’t.
It’s ragebait nonsense by exploiting (as keeps coming up with this story) the word ‘dividend’, to make it sound like someone’s profiting from this…when in reality the company that owns them is borderline going bust.
The decider in this story, what I’m interested to see…is _after_ the election, will the government make the nation pay for Londons’ pipes.
That’s the key choice, are they going to put up Londoners bills to pay for it, or is it going to come from taxes in general?
What a morally bankrupt company they are. Probably giving themselves and their mates one last payout before they all get the boot.
There needs to be far stricter rules and higher accountability for executives who run these companies into the ground, then watch the sewage issues disappear over night.
It’s unbelievable, but this is the mindset of dividends receivers and payers, I presume it’s like a bribe for the shareholders not to rebel and sack the directors or sell out – I think most of the shareholders are institutions managing funds, so I’m not sure if it is them paying money to mates, although I don’t rule it out.
They should make the shareholders pay back the dividend. That would just about cover the fine.