EA Losses Test Case Prosecution
24th, July 2013
The EA withdrew from the prosecution of WEEE Light on 23 July 2013 by offering no evidence to the court and WEEE Light were found not guilty and fully exonerated.
Dear Colleague
I am today in a position for the first time since May 2011 to write to you to thank you for the unquestioned support and understanding, without full explanation, you have given the company whilst WEEE Light Ltd had been obviously singled out for a test case prosecution action by the Environment Agency.
It is with great pleasure that I can announce today that the EA have capitulated 100% and withdrawn the prosecution proceedings against WEEE Light Ltd by offering no evidence. We were originally alleged to have knowingly collected WEEE outside of our viable plan in 2010 and failed to register a material change with an AATF when setting up a Regulation 39 collection system. The Environment Agency had pursued this case despite our obvious innocence and it has been very difficult to keep silent when such an injustice was taking place; this is especially so given leaks and unfounded claims from unknown sources that have been made to our customers and via the press since early 2011, however silent we have remained.
We engaged a legal team - Richard Gordon QC, Robert Sandford of Counsel and our company solicitors, Peter Blake-Turner and Rupert Farr of Blake-Turner & Co, at great expense to the company, and worked together for many months in pulling the evidence together to counter the charges made by the Environment Agency. From day one we were always confident of our successful defence due to our innocence and the obvious injustice the Environment Agency were seeking to achieve to meet the Government’s agenda in seeking to change and manipulate a system they had put in place by changing guidance and not regulation. Growth in AVC Weeeco Ltd’s PCSs has been achieved not by building collection system volumes and then seeking to ransom other PCSs; but to work with other PCSs whilst building our membership. This business model has proved to be exceptionally successful in the retail sector so we remain totally confused as to why the Environment Agency brought about this action using public money.
We attended court earlier this month for the prosecution and defence to report back to the Judge. It soon became apparent that the Environment Agency however had changed its case from one of knowingly and wilfully collecting outside of our viable plan to a case of strict liability. The Judge was clearly concerned and confused by this late change to the Environment Agency’s charge, as were our legal team. The Judge warned the Environment Agencies legal team that the idea to change the charge 20 minutes before the 12th hour, in other words totally changing the allegation 2 years after the first notification of the alleged offence and just 1 week before the skeleton arguments were due to be heard, had better have validity. The Judge also noted that this change had come about after the appointment of new leading counsel on behalf of the Environment Agency 7 days earlier.
The Environment Agency really got this one wrong and it is our company which has had to suffer the bad press, unprofessional approaches to our members by competitors wishing to make good on the erroneous allegations, not to mention the distraction to getting on with our business. Whilst we do not expect an apology, given the way in which the Environment Agency has operated in this matter to date, I do believe we are now in a position to get our growth plan to become the leading producer compliance scheme for retailers back on track.
Maybe this would be a good time for our competitors to take the original leaked story from the front pages of their websites too and I would appreciate you all, when asked, to use the contents of this e-mail as an explanation.
Any approach from the press should be directed to Pauline@weeeco.com, and the normal communication policy will be put in place.
Yours sincerely
Vincent F Eckerman
Send this page to a friend or contact us for further information
