Intervenor goes after BL&P’s financials

With Barbados Light & Power Company’s (BL&PC) rate hearing appeal expected to go to trial in December, intervenor Ricky Went has turned to the High Court in an effort to get access to documented information on BL&P’s financial performance.

On Tuesday, attorney Hal Gollop, K.C. filed an application on behalf of Went and his team asking the court to rule that the documents or information requested from BL&P through the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) are relevant to the appeal hearing and must be provided to intervenors.

Went confirmed the submission to the court and reminded that the information being sought is already known.

He said the hope is that the court will now intercede so that the following documents requested by him and his team are made available to all intervenors:

• The compliance filing as outlined in the Commission’s Decision & Order of February 15, 2023.

• BL&P’s audited non-consolidated financial reports for 2022 to 2024 and the half year report as at June 30 this year.

• The same audited financial reports for 2022 to 2024 in the established “test year format”.

• The audited financial reports for BL&P’s Self Insurance Fund for the years 2022 to 2024 and half year report as at June 30, 2025.

Went insisted that the information was required for several reasons.

“FTC in its own 2023 decision stated that ‘the Commission and intervenors have not had the opportunity to review the minimum-system study for accuracy, errors, or reasonableness’ and the same applies in relation to the compliance filing,” he said. “BL&P was granted a rudimentary 37 per cent increase as interim relief in November 2022 ahead of the main public hearing. Consumers are now paying excessive rates for almost three years. Without the 50 per cent VAT reduction on first 250 kilowatt hours, the less fortunate would have been in dire straits,” Went also claimed.

Another reason the intervenor said the information was needed related to replenishment of the SIF, one of the issues BL&P is opposing in its appeal.

“Other changes mandated by FTC will significantly reduce BL&P’s revenue requirement,” he stated.

Before making last week’s application, Gollop, in association with Ralph Thorne, KC sent a 37-page pre-action protocol letter to the FTC on September 29 requesting the information it is now seeking via the court.

Attorney Alrick Scott, KC, responding on the FTC’s behalf in writing on October 2, said there were “currently no live applications or live rate review proceedings before the FTC”.

“When a decision is given, the process of interrogatories, submitting evidence and arguments is at an end. Your letter seems to think that after a decision is given, the discovery or interrogatory process continues, without end. There is no legal basis, of which I am aware, to support such a position,” Scott said “Further, BL&PC has appealed the FTC’s review decision on BL&PC’s Application for Review of Electricity Rates. That matter is before the High Court. If it is your client’s contention that documents are relevant to that hearing, it would be proper for your client to make the application to the High Court, which we would advise the FTC to oppose.”

Scott also said he had not “seen any authority or statutory right for intervenors to monitor utility rate recovery to ensure that the utility does not over recover after a decision has been made”. In an October 8 reply to Scott, Gollop said that “in our view the proceedings are not closed so as per Rule 31(1) Utilities Regulation (Procedural) Rules, 2003 URR 31(1), all approved intervenors are permitted to request information or particulars relevant to the proceedings from BL&PC to: (i) ‘clarify evidence filed by the BL&PC; (ii) simplify the issues of the matter before the FTC; and (iii) permit a full and satisfactory understanding of matters to be considered’. Gollop also reminded his previous statement in the September 29 correspondence that the proceedings ought not be considered closed for several reasons.

This included that Went and other intervenors “remain active parties in the proceedings in the appeal which is to be heard in December 2025, so it is critical to ensure a comparison of BL&PC’s 2021 to 2025 forecasts with its audited financial statements as well as analysis of the compliance filing and any other facts that were not previously placed in the proceedings and could not have been discovered . . . at the time, would now be available to the court”. (SC)

The post Intervenor goes after BL&P’s financials appeared first on nationnews.com.