AN energy firm has been named as the new sponsor of the Scottish League Cup – just hours after it was fined more than half a million pounds for preventing customers from switching supplier
Utilita Energy was unveiled by The Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) Chief Executive Neil Doncaster as the tournament's backer for the rest of the season.
With unfortunate timing, Ofgem ordered the company to pay £560,000 for blocking customers from switching.
Utilita wrongly stopped 40,000 customers from switching to rival suppliers over a "prolonged" period between June 2010 and May 2015.
Customers were incorrectly blocked by the supplier in a variety of ways, including automatically blocking those on fixed-term contracts.
The company also failed to write to customers to explain why their switch had been blocked and what action they could take to resolve any issues.
Utilita will pay £450,000 to the debt help charity StepChange and is also working to refund £110,000 to customers who lost out financially, Ofgem said.
Any unclaimed money would also go to StepChange.
Anthony Pygram, Ofgem's senior partner with responsibility for enforcement, said: "The ability to switch suppliers is important for customers and fundamental to a well-functioning energy market.
"Utilita's prolonged failure to allow many customers to switch was unacceptable.
"Utilita acknowledges its failure and is rightly looking to refund customers left out of pocket."
A spokeswoman for Utilita apologised "unreservedly" to customers who were wrongly prevented from switching supplier.
"We will be contacting those customers as quickly as we can to rectify this," she said.
"Our customers are vitally important to us and we have taken quick and decisive action to update and improve our switching procedures. None of the issues investigated remain a problem and all our transfer processes are now compliant."
Pre-pay energy firm Utilita's sponsorship deal takes effect immediately and will cover this month's quarter-finals as well as the semis and final of this season's 70th Scottish League Cup competition.
The fine will last for the remainder of the current season.
The SPFL declined to comment on the firm's fine, but said they were delighted to have secured a sponsor.
Neil Doncaster said: " As an ambitious and growing business, Utilita is a perfect fit for the competition.
"With the quarter-finals of this year's Scottish League Cup presented by Utilita less than a fortnight away, everyone at the SPFL is looking forward to working with Utilita to help maximise the profile of both the competition and of the business and in turn bring excitement to fans of the participating clubs."
Utilita Energy chief executive officer Bill Bullen said: "We are very excited and - above all - honoured to be the official presenting partner of a trophy with such a rich footballing history.
"We have some wonderful ideas to really elevate this partnership with the SPFL, who have been fantastic throughout our negotiations, and we are now looking forward to getting started."
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