The Energy Advice Line has applauded a decision by OFGEM to make British Gas pay £5.6m in penalties for unfairly blocking business energy users from switching suppliers.
In welcoming the move, Julian Morgan, managing director of the price comparison and switching service for energy users, said business energy customers had long struggled with problems associated with switching.
Earlier this month the energy regulator ruled that Britain's biggest energy supplier had unfairly blocked business customers from switching to competitors. Nearly 6% of British Gas business account holders who had tried to switch suppliers between 2007 and 2012 had been queried because of outstanding debt or contractual issues.
"We are relieved on behalf of countless numbers of business energy users that their struggles to switch suppliers have finally been recognised by OFGEM," Mr Morgan said.
"The ability to switch supplier quickly and easily is crucial for businesses because regularly moving to cheaper deals is really the only effective way to keep their energy bills down.
"However, for many years business energy users have been unfairly thwarted in their attempts to do this and have suffered financially as a result.
"As OFGEM has now confirmed, British Gas failed to give adequate notice to about 1,200 business customers that their tariff deals were about to expire, thus preventing them from having time to shop around before they were rolled on to more expensive standard tariffs.
"Many of these customers who were blocked from switching were small businesses who could I'll afford to be stuck on onerous and expensive energy deals that were significantly more expensive than the cheapest available.
"It's been a long time coming, but these penalties imposed on British Gas are very welcome indeed.
"Businesses were effectively denied the chance to move to a better deal at the end of the fixed-term contracts."
Mr Morgan said many of the big suppliers continue to make it difficult for businesses to switch by making their tariffs overly-complicated.
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