Natural Resources Wales | A company responsible for polluting Llanishen Brook and Roath Park Lake in Cardiff has agreed to donate £150,000 to a local environmental charity, following an enforcement undertaking secured by Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

The payment by Erith Contractors Ltd to the South East Wales Rivers Trust will support the delivery of projects aimed at conservation and restoration of river habitats across South Wales.

The case began when a member of the public reported foul-smelling grey water in Llanishen Brook to NRW on 28 September 2023.

NRW’s officers investigated and traced the source of the pollution to groundwork taking place at the former HMRC tax office site as part of preparations to demolish high-rise buildings.

A demolition crew had damaged a main sewer line, causing raw sewage to discharge into a tributary of Llanishen Brook, which ended up in Roath Park Lake.

Working closely with staff from Erith Contractors Ltd and Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, NRW officers ensured that the damaged sewer was repaired and the pollution contained later that same day.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

Department for Business and Trade | The UK Government has launched a major review of the parental leave and pay system, the first of its kind in Britain.

As part of its “Plan for Change,” this review will look at how to “modernise parental leave to support families and help grow the economy.”

The review is to look at the whole system, from maternity and paternity leave to shared parental leave, to see how it can work better for parents and employers.

— Accurate at time of publication | July 2025

Fleet News | A record-breaking fine has been imposed on a fleet for repeated overloading offences, following a hearing at Bristol Magistrates’ Court.

Starling Distribution Services was ordered to pay £759,000, the biggest fine being issued ever for a Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) prosecution, after being convicted of overloading and defective vehicle offences for its milk delivery service.

Despite the company’s vehicles previously being found overloaded or with dangerous defects on multiple occasions, the court heard it continued to operate in a dangerous manner.

Starling Distribution Services was first prosecuted as part of DVSA’s Operation Milkman back in August 2023, where they were fined £204,660.

Despite this significant fine, the company continued to re-offend, leading to further convictions in November 2023 and August 2024, before this latest court appearance.

— Accurate at time of publication | July 2025

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region | Shui On Building Contractors Limited has been fined $21,000 at the Kwun Tong Magistrates’ Courts for violating the Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Safety Management) Regulation. The prosecution was launched by the Labour Department.

The case involved a fatal accident that occurred on 21 March 2023, at a construction site on Anderson Road.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

WorkSafe Victoria | A telecommunications infrastructure company and one of its directors have been convicted and fined a total of $545,000 after the asphyxiation of a worker who was attempting to repair a gas leak at Bentleigh East.

National Infrastructure Solutions Pty Ltd was sentenced ex-parte at Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court after being found guilty of two offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The company was convicted and fined $250,000 for reckless conduct endangering persons at a workplace and $250,000 for failing to maintain a safe system of work, while also being ordered to pay $4,210 in costs.

Co-director Robert Felice, 56, was sentenced at Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to a single charge of reckless conduct endangering persons at a workplace.

Felice was convicted and fined $45,000 and ordered to pay costs of $4,284.

In January 2023, two National Infrastructure Services workers struck an underground gas pipe while undertaking excavation works on a nature strip in Bentleigh East.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

Harborough District Council | A pub company has been fined £240,000 following the death of a woman who visited one of its pubs on 14 May 2023.

Julie Hyatt, 57, died from her injuries in hospital on 26 May 2023, after falling down some stairs at The Langton Arms in Church Langton.

Mrs Hyatt fell into a basement cellar through a door which should have been locked.

Harborough District Council has successfully prosecuted Redcat Retail Pubs Ltd, the pub company which owns The Langton Arms, for failing to comply with health and safety legislation.

After an extensive investigation the council concluded that the business had not assessed the risk to the health and safety of its employees or members of the public. There was no risk assessment in place to cover the access into the basement cellar.

Redcat Retail Pubs Ltd pleaded guilty to one count of breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and were ordered to pay £240,000, with a victim surcharge of £2,000 and £43,633.06 in legal costs.

The council has a duty to ensure that licensed premises comply with statutory requirements and can take appropriate enforcement action if required.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

HSE | A London construction company has been fined £50,000 after four men were injured – two seriously – when the first floor of a house collapsed during building works.

Aryn Stones Ltd had been contracted to build a new domestic property in Hampstead. On 31 May 2022, remedial works were being carried out on a partially built beam-and-block floor, when it collapsed, taking two of the workers down with it.

The two men include a welder, who is now 62, and a 31-year-old bricklayer. They both sustained life-changing injuries, while two other men who were standing at ground level were injured by falling concrete.

Work on the build began in March 2021 but by February the following year, engineers who inspected the property identified errors with the connections of the structural steel beams. This prompted the remedial works that led the structure to collapse. That came about when the welder was using an oxyacetylene torch to cut a steel beam supporting the first floor. However, at the same time, another worker had been removing some Acrow props that were supporting the beam.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

Natural Resources Wales | A farmer has been ordered to pay more than £4,000 in fines and costs after a pollution incident near Abergavenny led to soil and silt being discharged into two small watercourses.

Jamie Langford, of J M Langford and Son, based in Herefordshire, pleaded guilty and was sentenced at Newport Magistrates’ Court to an offence under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

The successful prosecution by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) resulted in Mr. Langford being fined £375 and ordered to pay £3,603.50 in costs to NRW, and a victim surcharge of £150. The level of fine for environmental offences is set by the courts and is based on the level of harm, culpability, and the financial means of the defendants.

The case followed an investigation by NRW officers into a pollution incident that occurred on 12 June 2023, when intense rainfall caused soil runoff from two potato fields being rented and cultivated by J M Langford and Son near Abergavenny.

The heavy downpour washed soil and silt from the recently planted fields into two nearby watercourses, one a tributary of the Mynachdy Brook and the other a tributary of the Nant Gavenny.

The runoff also caused extensive damage to a neighbouring property, including The Copper Kettle Café and adjoining dwellings. That element of the incident is being dealt with separately by insurers.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

Icenews | Fariba Vancor, a Swedish entrepreneur labeled as the “queen of trash” and the former boss of Think Pink waste management company, has been convicted of 19 serious environmental crimes.

Vancor has been convicted of 19 serious environmental crimes and sentenced to six years in prison for dumping hundreds of thousands of tonnes of toxic waste.

Vancor’s ex-husband, Thomas Nilsson, was also found guilty of 12 serious environmental crimes and sentenced to three years and six months in prison.

Judge Niklas Schüllerqvist noted that Think Pink’s dumping had posed great risks to people and the environment.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

Canadian Occupational Safety | Ontario-based Sofina Foods Inc. has been fined $330,000 following the death of one of its workers in a workplace incident.

The incident occurred on 2 March 2023, when 32-year-old Samir Subedi, an Edmonton-based worker, went to check the temperature of a gas-fired smokehouse. The smokehouse had been loaded with meat the previous night, according to a report from The Canadian Press (CP).

Subedi, a superintendent at the workplace, became trapped inside the smokehouse.

It was reported that the smokehouse’s emergency handle, designed to open the door from the inside, was broken. In its place was a door stopper that had not been approved by the company’s engineering team.

A temperature probe in the smokehouse registered a reading of 92°C. A co-worker later found Subedi unconscious inside the smokehouse.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

Ofgem | Energy company Utilita will pay around £277,000 in compensation after failing to pay its Warm Home Discount payments on time, following a review by Ofgem.

The regulator found that, in the scheme year covering 2023-2024, Utilita – which supplies 800,000 customers – failed to pass on the mandatory discount to more than 4,000 customers within the required timeframe because of an internal error in processing payments.

The Warm Home Discount scheme – which is administered by Ofgem on behalf of government – supports energy consumers on low incomes by offering an automatic payment of £150 to eligible customers each year.

In recognition of the impact delayed Warm Home Discount payments could have on its customers Utilita has agreed to pay £247,000 of compensation to those affected, who will receive further payments of up to £150 each. This is in addition to £30,000 of compensation Utilita paid to affected customers shortly after the error was identified.

Ofgem has also published its Supplier Performance Report, which assesses supplier performance in the delivery of a number of government schemes including the Warm Home Discount and Feed-in Tariffs schemes.

The report confirms that in the same 2023-2024 scheme year, the regulator secured nearly £762,000 in redress payments from suppliers for non-compliance with the Warm Home Discount scheme.

This includes direct compensation to customers and payments into Ofgem’s Voluntary Redress Fund which funds projects and schemes to support energy consumers, particularly those in vulnerable situations.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025

Scottish Legal News | The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined genetic testing company 23andMe £2.31 million for failing to implement appropriate security measures to protect the personal information of UK users, following a large-scale cyber attack in 2023.

The penalty follows a joint investigation conducted by the ICO and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Between April and September 2023, a hacker carried out a credential stuffing attack on 23andMe’s platform, exploiting reused login credentials that were stolen from previous unrelated data breaches.

This resulted in the unauthorised access to personal information belonging to 155,592 UK residents, potentially revealing names, birth years, self-reported city or postcode-level location, profile images, race, ethnicity, family trees and health reports. The type and amount of personal information accessed varied depending on the information included in a customer’s account.

The investigation found that 23andMe did not have additional verification steps for users to access and download their raw genetic data.

— Accurate at time of publication | June 2025