2024 has been an exciting year for Good Jobs First here in the UK, with our first conference examining the state of UK enforcement taking place in the summer. In two reports we looked at the relatively low level of enforcement in the UK, both in comparison to the US and in relation to the real challenges faced by the country.
With the recent launch of Violation Tracker Global, the momentum behind our mission to increase awareness of corporate misconduct and promote corporate accountability is stronger than ever.
Here is a review of enforcement action by offence type taken against companies in the UK in 2024. Unlike last year, during which competition offences received the highest total penalties, this year financial offences top the list whilst a higher amount of fines went to consumer-protection offences. Fewer fines were issued for environmental and safety offences, whilst workers clawed back slightly more in unpaid wages and for breaches of employment law at tribunals.
Financial Offences — £824.6 million in fines
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) brought in the most fines of 2024, with total penalties of over £800 million, a huge increase on 2023. £298 million of this was in action taken by the agency against Link Fund Solutions, which was ordered to pay customer redress payments of £230 million.
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has posted 240 corporate tax violations, issuing £48.8 million in penalties. The largest penalty for tax evasion was paid by employment agency Genius Pro Contract Services, which owed £6 million in unpaid tax.
Labour market — £42 million paid back to workers
Another employment agency topped the list for failure to pay minimum wage — Staffline Recruitment Limited failed to pay over £5 million to 36,767 workers. They were at the top of the list of the 520 companies named by the Department for Business and Trade earlier this year who failed to pay minimum wage and indeed constituted the highest wage theft recorded on their naming and shaming lists to date. The 2024 list identified almost £16 million in unpaid wages.
Workers won 2136 employment tribunals in the first three quarters of the year. The highest compensation ordered at employment tribunal was £3 million for age discrimination, one of the highest outcomes on record.
Competition — £62 million in fines
The CMA issued very few penalties this year — only four companies paid out a total of £28.7m, the bulk of which is a £23m payback to the NHS yet to be paid by Vifor pharma for potentially misleading doctors. This is a dramatic drop from last year’s £195m.
Consumer-Protection — £237 million in fines
Like the CMA, the Gambling Commission saw a big decline in the total penalties issued to companies with only £6 million levied from three companies after a record-breaking year of fines in 2023.
However other regulators have boosted the overall size of penalties issued for consumer-protection offences.
OFCOM issued £22 million in penalties, including a large settlement with BT for £17.5 million for failure to deal with problems with the UK’s emergency call handling system. OFGEM also issued higher total penalties this year, with six fines totalling £67 million, the largest to Beatrice Offshore Windfarm for charging excessive prices. Drax settled with the regulator for misreporting.
The FCA delivered the highest fines for consumer-protection offences, fining TSB almost £11 million and ordering the company to pay customer refunds of over £90 million.
The ICO issued 13 fines and some high-profile reprimands, including to the Labour Party for repeatedly failing to respond to people asking what personal data it held on them, and large public contractor Serco for using facial recognition software and fingerprint scanning to monitor workers.
Welsh Water made the top five highest penalties issued this year after Ofwat found it had misled customers and ordered it to pay £40 million back to customers.
In its last-ever settlement, the Phone-paid Services Authority fined Telecom2 £255,000 for due diligence, risk assessment, and control failures.
Environment — £8.5 million in fines
The Environment Agency posted £8 million in fines, whilst the Scottish Environment Protection Agency had a record year for civil penalties with £14 million levied in fines for greenhouse gas emission offences.
Safety — £38 million in fines
The Health and Safety Executive secured 120 convictions with penalties totalling £34 million. The largest penalty was paid by National Grid after a worker suffered serious burns when working on a pylon.
The Food Standards Agency successfully prosecuted two companies – SG Perkins for falsifying Salmonella testing certificates and Higginshaw Abattoir for repeatedly failing to keep meat at safe temperatures.
Healthcare — £1 million in fines
Healthcare offences continue to be under-enforced, with very few cases receiving a monetary penalty. This year the highest penalty paid was £693,852 by Priory Healthcare for failures that led to the death of a patient. The CQC concluded five prosecutions. Across the UK, seven private healthcare facilities were forcibly closed down by regulators.
For more information on any of the entries, check out our advanced search function on Violation Tracker UK.
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