The country’s largest water company has been accused of planning to pay shareholder dividends from millions of pounds allocated to environmental projects.
Senior managers at Thames Water, which serves 16 million people in London and several home counties, were said to have baulked at the move after having assessed the legal and reputational risks of going ahead.
According to a report in the Guardian newspaper, secret discussions at the company resulted in the managers rejecting the idea of diverting the funds to shareholders and to paying bonuses after it was decided that the move could have been unlawful.
Sources are reported to have told the newspaper that internal discussions around diverting funds that were meant to be allocated to environmental projects took place at the