Business services group DCC has said it 'completely refutes' recent articles in the Sunday Times, claiming they are misleading and inaccurate.
Over the past three weeks, the Sunday Times published a series of articles about DCC's British Oil distribution business, GB Oils. The articles claim that the business is 'ripping off' its customers, 'fleecing' pensioners and 'inflating customer bills'.
GB oil has about 450,000 domestic, commercial, industrial and agricultural customers in Britain and has a market share of about 14%. It sold four billion litres of oil products last year. About 19% of this was kerosene, the heating oil product for domestic users.
In a statement, DCC said the Sunday Times claimed GB Oils 'enjoys a virtual monopoly in parts of Britain' in the heating oil market. DCC said this is not the case and pointed out that there are 175 other oil distributors in the UK.
The statement added that DCC had tried to co-operate with the newspaper in order to ensure it could 'report accurately and fairly'
'Despite this co-operation, the newspaper has continued to report in a selective manner and in a way that predominantly fails to present the facts either accurately or fairly. This is extremely disappointing,' the statement said.
