Energy brokers can also be referred to as an energy agent, energy consultancy or, more recently, a third-party intermediary (TPI). They purport to obtain you the best energy deals for your business, whereas in reality, they have often had “preferred suppliers” who are usually those that pay them the highest secret commissions, or those that allow them to mark-up the unit rates (kWh’s).

A TPI stands for ‘Third Party Intermediary’, is a term used to refer to energy brokers or energy consultants.

Many clients have an energy broker and trust them to get you a good deal for your energy. Sometimes, where this trust has been built up brokers can take advantage and therefore results in larger claims for clients.

You could write to your supplier and any previous suppliers along with your broker, they have an obligation to disclose this to you and keep a record of any correspondence as it may be required later.

You should have a copy of the contract and copy bills plus a letter of authority, the detail in this should explain the terms and conditions plus the commission amounts, if not it is likely that you may have a claim.

We take a case on in anticipation of a successful outcome, some people call these types of agreements “no-win, no-fee agreements”. In the event your claim is successful we will deduct our fee (set out clearly and explained to you in full when you begin your claim) from any award made to you.

There is a small chance you may have to. Only a small number of cases proceed to court but if this happens, your solicitor will be there every step of the way to guide you.

It is possible that court proceedings would be necessary, but we are anticipating that the vast majority of claims will be settled out of court. In cases where we consider that the facts surrounding the claim do not necessarily look to be in your favour for any reason, our advice may well be to not proceed. This will not involve you in any costs.

Energy brokers would tend to talk around the issue and perhaps mention an introductory fee or even allege that theirs was a free service. In reality, their fee was usually a direct mark-up of the unit rates quoted by the supplier, for example, if your annual electricity consumption was 80,000 kWh’s and the broker had marked up the unit (kWh) rate by 2 pence, they would be getting paid £1,600 a year or £4,800 on a 3-year contract. Alternatively, they may have received fees from the supplier based upon ranges of anticipated annual consumption data. This forecast annual consumption was often overstated by the broker to maximise their commissions.

Firstly, how could you be sure that it was a good unit rate? It depends upon whether they supplied you with a number of quotations from different suppliers, for instance, and crucially, did they disclose what their uplift to the unit rate was? Even if you had what you would deem to be a good relationship with your broker(s), unless they volunteered details of their commissions and how they were calculated, you cannot be sure of the deal they had presented you with, and they would have been acting outside the law.

The claim can be settled as quickly as just a few weeks if the claim is relatively small and is uncontested and possibly several months for a larger claim where legal points need to be established and argued. We will work with you through the whole process to ensure a timely resolution of your claim.

Energyclaim.co.uk make no charge to the customer for the service and in each case where we establish that a claim needs to be undertaken, this is passed to one of our specialist team of solicitors working on a no-win, no-fee basis, which means that this process will not cost you anything at all and you only stand to gain from any successful claim. Our fee and that of our specialist solicitors is dependent upon a claim being successful and will therefore be deducted from the resultant compensation. This will be detailed in an agreement.

Regretfully, it is unlikely that an energy supplier will disclose what they will regard as commercially sensitive information, particularly as it relates to the hidden commissions upon which any claim would be based