CICRA, which is funded by taxpayers, became embroiled in a court case with ATF Fuels after the competition watchdog ruled, in March 2016, that the firm had abused its market position by charging higher prices for aviation fuel for some customers than others.
The decision was overturned on appeal by the Royal Court earlier this year and CICRA has since announced it will not be challenging the Royal Court’s decision.
Senator Philip Ozouf claimed the court case would have cost CICRA around £1 million.
The court criticised the action taken by the regulator, and the fuel company has now called for urgent measures to be taken against CICRA. ATF Fuels has also invited other people and businesses with similar concerns to lobby States Members in order to bring about action.
The Chief Minister’s Department has now confirmed that the case is being reviewed, with steps being taken to ‘formalise the terms of reference, agree the scope and cost of the work and appoint a UK QC’ to conduct the investigation.
Meanwhile, legal costs expert Jim Diamond says the fees in the court case have again shown
that Jersey’s law firms are failing to provide appropriate levels of cost transparency.
In November, the States refused to provide information about the cost of the court case to date following a Freedom of Information request from the JEP.
The reasons for the refusal included that legal fees should remain confidential between clients and lawyers and that it could hinder competition if other law firms were able to work out from the information how much another company was charging.
Mr Diamond said: ‘It is pretty astonishing really. I haven’t changed my opinion on anything in terms of transparency, cost controls and value for money.
‘The English competition authority has demanded transparency. When their report was published it demanded things like hourly rates being put up on websites.
‘I told the Jersey competition authority that the work has been done for them and it would be a fantastic idea to move towards what the UK has done. They said they would come back to me and never did.’
He added that it was ‘ironic’ that despite him telling the regulator about the English report, they were the body that appeared to have been affected by soaring fees, and he accused CICRA of living in ‘la-la land’ for failing to control the cost of the case.
‘Once again we have this idea that Jersey doesn’t tell anyone anything,’ Mr Diamond said. ‘How have they allowed those levels of costs to run up without proper budgeting?
‘How can you run a case when you don’t look at what the potential risks are? It is almost as if they are living in la-la land.
‘If the States are underwriting it, they should want a complete risk assessment.
‘Surely if you do the due diligence at the start you look at it and think, actually we do not have a case against these people.’
