On 6 September 2010, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) published a working paper on the structure of infrastructure ownership in the UK. This follows the announcement by the OFT in May 2010 that it would undertake a stock-take of the ownership and control across certain economic infrastructure sectors including ports, airports, energy and water networks, and car-parks, together with an assessment of how ownership of infrastructure affects outcomes for consumers in these sectors.

The current working paper relates to the first element of that stock-taking, the mapping of ownership of infrastructure assets. The OFT's intention is that it should make available the data so far gathered and explain the approach the OFT has taken in compiling this data. The data comes from public sources, with assistance from the sector regulators, and is effectively a 'snapshot' taken between April and August 2010 of where ownership of the relevant infrastructure lies.

The OFT has previously confirmed that this study has not been prompted by any specific complaint or concern and that this initiative is an independent project not related to the work being carried out by Infrastructure UK and that it will not duplicate the work of sector regulators such as OFGEM and OFCOM, although it will build on their existing knowledge and the OFT will liaise with those regulators.

The purpose of publishing the working paper is:

  • To establish a single source of data on infrastructure ownership and control, in the absence of another such single source
  • To enable stakeholders to consider the information and provide comments and or corrections for inclusion in the final report
  • To provide information to assist other organisations' research or decision-making processes.

The purpose of mapping infrastructure is to determine the different types of infrastructure ownership that exist and the consequences of these ownership structures for the consumer. The OFT is also interested in the extent of cross-ownership of infrastructure by the same owner or group of owners. The areas covered by the survey are: energy; transport; communications; water and waste.

In order to collate the ownership data, the OFT has relied on information from sector regulators, government, third party sources and company reports of asset-owners.

In each case, the OFT has attempted to identify the uppermost owner of an asset and any other critical layers in the ownership chain. It has then broken down the various undertakings into categories - listed and unlisted parent companies; publicly owned companies; plc shareholdings; managed investments; and foreign-owned entities.

The OFT invites stakeholders to contribute by sending information on specific mistakes in the data presented in the working paper, along with the correct information and its source, as well as any other comments on the paper or the data contained in it.

The OFT infrastructure ownership and control stock-take homepage is available here.

Our previous Law Now, published at the time of the May 2010 announcement, is available here.

This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq

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The original publication date for this article was 08/09/2010.