If a broker arranged your business energy before October 2024…
…you could be owed thousands, taken as a hidden commission nobody ever told you about.
Fair warning: this is a long page. But if a broker ever arranged your energy, what’s buried in here could be worth thousands to you. Give it ten minutes, top to bottom. It might be the best-paid ten minutes of your week.
Most brokers took their fee as commission from the supplier and buried it in your unit rate. It sounds trivial, 1 to 3p a unit, but on a £30,000-a-year bill that’s up to around £10,000 quietly taken over a three-year contract.
Getting paid is fair; hiding how much is what the Supreme Court says you can reclaim, and one manufacturer just clawed back £130,000. Let’s find out what it could be worth to you.
But first, let’s explain how we got here..
How a British manufacturer clawed back £130,000 in hidden energy commission, and what it means for your business.
Expert Tooling and Automation Limited is a manufacturer with heavy electricity use, and it used a broker, Utilitywise, to arrange its supply with the supplier, Engie Power Limited. The first contract ran five years from 2016, and four more followed.
Engie Power Limited paid Utilitywise a commission, and it was built into the unit rate Expert Tooling and Automation Limited paid, more than £130,000 across the five contracts. The business had been told a commission would be paid, but it was never told the amount, or that it sat inside the rate on every single bill.
Utilitywise later went under, so Expert Tooling and Automation Limited pursued the supplier instead. After the 2025 Supreme Court ruling on hidden commissions, its appeal was allowed in January 2026, and judgment was entered for the full commission, reaching back to the 2016 contracts.
The timeline
What this means for you: where a broker’s commission was never properly disclosed, that money may be recoverable, and a claim may reach back years. Every case is different, and your own figure can only come from a proper assessment, but the Expert Tooling ruling shows just how much can be at stake.
Source: Expert Tooling and Automation Limited v Engie Power Limited [2025] EWCA Civ 292; appeal allowed at the Supreme Court, January 2026. Reported in national and certain trade press.
You knew your broker got paid. They just never told you how much.
And just so you know, this wasn’t a few rogue firms. On Ofgem’s own estimate, it was simply how the industry worked: around £2bn a year, across roughly two million business contracts.
Here’s how it worked. A broker found you a contract and sorted the paperwork, and most owners assumed the supplier paid them for it, not you. Fair enough, that’s how it was pitched.
And the supplier did pay them, a commission for signing you up. Nothing wrong with that by itself.
The catch is what you were never told: how much it came to, and that the broker often set that figure themselves. Because it didn’t land as a separate invoice. It was built straight into your unit rate, often 1 to 3p on every kWh, paid back on every unit of every bill for the life of the contract.
Over a few years, that quietly climbs into five figures.
Now, here’s what this could look like on your own bill.
Rough guide only. This is not a quote, an offer or a promise. It illustrates what a commission of 1 to 3p per unit could have added to your bills on a typical rate. It is not a sum you would receive, and it does not confirm you have a claim. Your actual position depends on your real rate, usage and contract, and can only be confirmed by a formal assessment from the solicitors. Nothing here is legal or financial advice.
That’s your money, let’s see if we can get it back for you!
Do you tick these four boxes? Most broker-arranged businesses do.
If most of these sound like you, it’s worth checking. Not sure on one? That’s fine, the check will sort it.
Below the threshold? You can still register now. As things stand, claims under roughly £10,000 don’t proceed, and that bar still holds for now. But we may be able to help with smaller claims in future. It isn’t something we can do today, and we can’t promise it will happen, so there’s no pressure either way. Send your details now and we’ll keep them on file, ready to come straight back to you if the door opens for smaller claims.
You don’t have to run a factory to be owed.
High-energy businesses like pubs, care homes, factories and hotels tend to have the most buried in their bills, simply because they burn energy morning to night. But they’re far from the only ones. Any business that used a broker could be owed, whatever line you’re in, as long as your energy spend runs to roughly £500 a month or more. Above that, it’s worth a look.
What this actually costs you.
Nothing to find out. Nothing up front. And if a claim succeeds, the fee comes out of the money recovered, never out of your pocket. No, it isn’t “free”: here’s exactly how it works.
Nothing.
The eligibility check is free, and so is sending your bills. You’re never asked for a card, a deposit or a fee to find out where you stand.
A success fee, taken from what’s recovered.
The solicitors work no win, no fee. Their fee is a percentage of what’s recovered, agreed in writing before you commit, and it comes out of the money the claim brings in, not your own pocket. So it isn’t free, but you only ever pay from money you wouldn’t otherwise have had.
You’re not billed for the legal work.
If it doesn’t come off, you aren’t charged for the solicitors’ time. You’re out nothing but a bit of paperwork.
How Profitwize is paid, and how your firm is chosen: We work with an established claims company that specialises in these cases and has its own panel of law firms. They match your claim to the firm best suited to win it. For the introduction, they pay us a fee that never comes from you and is never added to your claim. Our job is simply to find out whether you’re owed, and point you to the right people to get it back.
In plain terms: the only time you pay is when you’ve won, and even then it comes out of the winnings.
The whole journey, and where the choice stays yours.
Sending us your documents doesn’t commit you to anything. Here’s what happens, who handles each step, and the point where you decide whether to go ahead.
You send us your information
Usually 4 to 6 recent energy bills and your contract if you have it. No paperwork to hand? Your supplier portal or accountant will have it, and we’ll help you find it.
You · gather a few documentsWe review it and size up the potential
We look at what you’ve sent and estimate the potential quantum, whether there’s enough there to be worth a solicitor’s time. If there isn’t, we tell you plainly.
Us · the first reviewA call with the law firm
If it’s worth taking further, you speak with the SRA-regulated law firm. They go through your situation, answer your questions, and assess whether there’s a claim.
You & the solicitors · one callThe law firm decides whether there’s a case
After that call and their own assessment, the solicitors decide whether to take it on. It’s their professional judgement, not a foregone conclusion, and not every enquiry becomes a claim.
The law firm · the decisionYou see the full terms, then you choose
If they’ll take it on, the terms and the success fee are put in writing first. Only when you’re happy do you sign to appoint them, and the process with your supplier begins. The decision to go ahead is always yours.
You · your decision, your choiceNothing is decided until you decide it. Up to the moment you sign to appoint the solicitors, you’re under no obligation. Sending documents simply lets the right people work out whether you have a claim worth making.
Some things to consider.
Nobody can promise you a number.
Any figure quoted before the solicitors’ full assessment is a guess, from us or anyone else. Be wary of firms that promise amounts up front.
Sooner is better than later.
Right now, this is still ahead of the crowd. As awareness spreads and more businesses put claims forward, the queue lengthens, and a busier system means a longer wait to see your money if your claim succeeds. Getting your case in now, while you’re in front of it, is simply quicker than joining the back of a much longer line later.
Four questions. No paperwork. Free to do.
Answer honestly. “Not sure” is a perfectly good answer. If it doesn’t qualify, we’ll tell you straight.
Prefer to talk to a human first? That’s completely fine. We usually reply to WhatsApp fastest.
Asked and answered, plainly.
Is this a scam?
A fair question, this sector attracts chancers. We’re a local business based in Nottingham, and there’s nothing to pay to find out where you stand. The claims come from real court rulings on hidden broker commission that have been covered in the national and certain trade press. Search “energy broker hidden commission,” read for yourself, then come back.
Are you regulated?
Yes, in the way this kind of claim requires. Profitwize is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for data protection. Our introducer role sits outside FCA regulation because business energy claims aren’t an FCA-regulated activity in the first place, and the claim itself is pursued by an SRA-regulated law firm on the claims company’s panel.
But my broker actually saved me money.
They may well have, and brokers are entitled to be paid. The claim isn’t about using a broker. It’s about commission that was hidden inside your unit rate without telling you the amount. You can have got a decent deal and still have paid thousands in commission you were never told about.
Who we areThe wise old owl on your side of the meter.
Profitwize is a Nottinghamshire business with one job: finding money that UK businesses are owed or quietly overpaying. Energy commission claims are where we start, because that’s where the law has just moved in your favour.
The only question left is whether it happened to you.
You’ve seen how the commission was hidden, and the kind of business it happens to. Four quick questions tell you if yours is worth assessing. It’s free, and you’re under no obligation.
Or email brett@profitwize.co.uk
Hidden energy-broker commission wasn’t always a small fee. Ofgem highlighted one five-year contract containing an estimated £24,000 in hidden commission, equal to half the business’s entire energy spend, and another case where 41% of a social club’s bills consisted of undisclosed broker commission. In Weardale v Engie, commission reached 3p per kWh: enough to add £3,000 a year for every 100,000 kWh used, or £15,000 over five years. If your broker never clearly explained what they were earning, thousands of pounds could have been quietly buried in your energy bills.
Source: OfgemHidden energy-broker commission was never a small fee.
If your broker never clearly explained what they were earning, thousands of pounds could have been quietly buried in your energy bills.
Source: Ofgem