Anyone suing the Government, We're in

[solarsavings]

I think the point here is that you need go to court to prove that, all the way to the supreme court..................big money!!!!

 

[moggy1968]

yeh, but what you could do is get every hard working, tax paying person in the country to fund your useless and flawed action.
Oh no, sorry, that's what the Government does, my mistake!!!

 

[SolarCity]

I think the point here is that you need go to court to prove that, all the way to the supreme court..................big money!!!!

Surely proving it is what this court case is all about.

My case would be: Government has acted illegally. It had X effect on my business.

 

[solarsavings]

At the risk of repeating myself. Whether the government did or didn't act illegally has to proved in court that costs money, lots of money. Although only a "few thousand" to huhne it's a significant sum to FOE.

Battles won by the few rejoiced by the many.

 

[SolarCity]

At the risk of repeating myself. Whether the government did or didn't act illegally has to proved in court that costs money, lots of money. Although only a "few thousand" to huhne it's a significant sum to FOE.

Like I say, I'm no expert on law but if the FOE are successful in their legal action, does that not mean that the rest of us don't have to repeatedly prove that the government acted illegally?

 

[SRE]

Looks to me like a class action could be pulled together once the gov't has gone through the appeal process - this makes interesting reading:
Feed-in Tariff appeal could clear the way for solar industry damages claims > National News > News | Click Green

 

[TedM]

There are a couple of low/zero cost options.

Complain to the Parliamentary Ombudsman - having gone through the steps to exhaust other remedies first - What we can help with

Take out an action in the small claims court - claim limit is £5k I think. If every single solar installer in the country did this then DECC would sink under the legal paperwork. This will cost you in court fees and possibly solicitor's fees too. But if you win you should get these back.

You could start by writing to DECC, copy to your MP, listing your losses (be honest and don't overstate them) and ask for compensation and see what happens. But I would imagine DECC's response would be to try to get any action put aside until after the Supreme Court give a judgement. This would give you a jumping off point for the other actions as, no doubt, you would stress that time was of the essence in receiving compensation before you go bankrupt.

I've gone through Small Claims myself before and won - but there were plenty of sleepless nights.

 

[solarsavings]

I bet that would need to funded on a no win no fee basis ;-)

 

[Earthstore]

Or don't be greedy and go to the small claims court..

 

[Gavin A]

IMO the only companies with any likelihood of winning a compensation claim here would be those who had customers who cancelled a signed contract specifically because of the cut on 12th Dec, and anyone with who had a project / projects in the pipeline with particularly long lead times that had already put a significant amount of money into that project - eg someone who'd got some 50kW jobs lined up and had ordered the panels direct from China with a 6 week lead time, or paid the DNO to upgrade the grid or waiting for planning permission having paid a planning consultant. That sort of thing anyway.

Similarly, a customer who'd made an order for a system based on the higher rates, but couldn't get it installed before 12th Dec would pretty much certainly be entitled to compensation to the value of the difference between the old and new rates, but I think this may only if they'd actually gone ahead with the project. This is unlikely to be an issue though as it would only apply if the supreme court found against the government, and in this case the reference date would change to 3rd March anyway, and the new reference date would be a legal one IMO. There is legal precedent for this btw, incidentally it's the same legal precedent that would prevent the government from being able to retrospectively cut the FIT rates for existing SSEG system owners.

I doubt a company would have much of a case for claiming purely on the basis of a drop in the rate of orders coming in, because the government could fairly easily point to examples of companies who'd successfully managed to bring new orders in at the reduced rates, and show that the blame for this lack of orders can't entirely be laid at the government's door. I could be wrong on this, but would think the better business strategy would be to focus on ways of bringing in new business rather than spending time, effort and money suing the government on this basis - that's certainly our strategy, and we've got a pretty full order book for February based on selling at the 21p rate, and expect March to fill up rapidly once the April changes are announced.

I'm not a lawyer btw.

 

[alberthot]

Feed-in Tariff appeal could clear the way for solar industry damages
claims
by ClickGreen staff. Published Sun 29 Jan 2012 11:55, Last updated:
2012-01-29
Supreme Court to decide outcome of Feed-in Tariffs

Government Ministers have been warned they have passed the point of no
return with their appeal bid to the Supreme Court as last week’s ruling
has wider implications for other Whitehall departments.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change has found itself compelled
to challenge the decision of three Appeal Court judges who upheld an
original High Court ruling that its rushed cuts to the Feed-in Tariff
were unlawful.

However, an unsuccessful final appeal could clear the way for the UK’s
solar industry to argue for damages and loss of earnings with a claim
of tort that Secretary of State Chris Huhne failed in his duty of care.

One senior lawyer said: “It is usual to sue another party under
contract law but there is no contract here, only a legislative subsidy.
However, it may be possible to bring a successful court action against
DECC for damages with a claim of tort.

“A stampede to the courts may not be in the industry’s best interests
currently as it may nudge the
Supreme Court towards allowing the appeal if they believe the
Government is facing the prospect of a huge raft of damages claims.”

Many in the sector had criticised DECC’s decision to apply direct to
the Supreme Court after its legal team were denied leave to appeal on
Wednesday. Some suggested it was a political stunt to kick the issue
into the long grass, while the new contingency date of March 3 nears.

However, according to the lawyer, there is no going back for Energy
Ministers as the Court of Appeal ruling touched on issues of
constitutional law and may have laid down a precedent with far-reaching
consequences for other departments.

The lawyer told GreenWeek the DECC legal team are well within their
rights to seek a Supreme Court appeal, and added: “The problem is the
Court of Appeal judgement was based on a point of constitutional law.
The appeal court judges may have laid down a precedent by ruling on
whether the Secretary of State acted within his powers – this has much
wider implications for the Government and decision-makers.”

The full article of this story can be found on GreenWeek at:
ClickGreen - GreenWeek4 - GreenWeek

 

[moggy1968]

I have an email from a customer not wanting to go ahead specifically because I couldn't guarantee the tariff. Once the dust has settled I may think about small claims court for my profit on the job.

I don't suppose I have a hope, but it'll be worth it to mess them about!

 

[finchy]

This all sound complicated and morally wrong, yes the government was unjust to do what they did however I would rather get back to rebuilding this industry which currently is like a roller-coaster !! How can anyone in this industry plan anything longer than 2/3weeks.

 

[whinmoor]

Not being a legal expert, I researched the issue of "tort". (I'm more familiar with "tarts" but that's another story). According to Wikipedia:

"One who commits a tortious act is called a tortfeasor."

A new word for my vocabulary but it doesn't exactly trip off the tongue so I think I will stick to calling Huhne and Barker a pair of wa***rs.

 

[Earthstore]

Waiters???
Would not want them to serve me though, it would take them 6 months to get the food to the table, and even if everybody told them they had got the order wrong, they probably would not believe it...