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Article: SEVERN TRENT (SVT).
- Article from:
- Investors Chronicle
- Article date:
- May 26, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 FT Business. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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1,115p - Gas, water & multi-utilities - An investigation into reporting irregularities in its water business has cast a shadow over Severn Trent. Last October, management announced that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was investigating possible errors in data about leakage rates, which had been supplied by Severn Trent to the water regulator, Ofwat. In March, Ofwat concluded that Severn Trent had submitted incorrect income data in 2004, which meant that Severn Trent's permitted price increases between 2005 and 2010 are GBP8m a year too high. In addition, data provided in 2002 contained deliberate mistakes, which meant that customers were overcharged by GBP2m. The upshot is ...