Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on April 2, 2026
2 min readLast updated: April 2, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleOfwat has agreed to a payment plan allowing Thames Water to defer most of its £122.7 million fines—20% by September 30, 2025, with the rest due upon financial restructuring, exit from special administration, or by a hard deadline of March 31, 2030.
April 2 (Reuters) - Thames Water is poised to reach a pact with water regulator Ofwat for Britain's largest water supplier to avoid new fines until 2030, the Financial Times said on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The regulator plans to accept "undertakings" instead of financial penalties, but Thames Water would still face Environment Agency fines and legal cases, the newspaper said, without specifying the size of the fines.
Performance targets on pollution, leakage and other areas will either be suspended or significantly modified, it added.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Ofwat and Thames Water did not respond to a request for comment.
Thames Water, with 16 million customers, has been fending off financial collapse since 2023 as it grapples with debt of nearly 20 billion pounds ($26.47 billion) in a sector where the regulator limits price increases.
At the centre of a sewage scandal in Britain, the company has also been in talks with the government, regulators and senior creditors over a rescue deal.
A group of its creditors have offered 3.35 billion pounds of new equity and up to 6.55 billion pounds of new debt.
Without an agreement between the regulators and the creditors, Thames Water is likely to end up in the government's special administration regime, a form of temporary nationalisation.
($1=0.7556 pounds)
(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Clarence Fernandez)
Thames Water is expected to agree with water regulator Ofwat to avoid new fines until 2030, according to a Financial Times report.
Thames Water is regulated by Ofwat, the water services regulation authority in Britain.
The information on the reported agreement has not been verified by Reuters.
If the deal is finalized, Thames Water may avoid new fines until 2030.
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