Money Box - 17/09/2011

On Money Box with Paul Lewis:

One of Britain's biggest insurers has been singled out by a judge for apparently inflating the price of car repairs.The judge says the practices by Royal and Sun Alliance are viewed by some of its rivals as falling somewhere between "sharp practice" and "outright fraud." Money Box has been at the forefront of investigating why car insurance premiums have risen steeply over the past year or so. Bob Howard reports.

Since 2007 landlords in England and Wales have had a legal obligation to place tenants' deposits in one of three named protection schemes. The Government introduced this to provide a fairer system for settling disputes between landlords and tenants. However Money Box has found out that there are significant loopholes in the law which make it difficult for many tenants to get their deposits back at the end of their tenancy. Shelter and the Residential Landlords Association, speak to the programme.

The case of Kweku Adoboli, the UBS trader, who allegedly lost his bank £1.3bn in unauthorised trading, has highlighted how trading in derivatives is still a risky business. The subject of the lack of risk controls by banks has been in the headlines this week as the Independent Commission on Banking urged that investment and retail banking should be ringfenced from each other.Terry Smith, chief executive officer of investment specialists Tullett Prebon joins the programme.

The last of the 'big six' energy companies, EDF, is to raise gas prices by 15.4% and electricity prices by 4.5% for domestic customers from next month. The regulator, Ofgem, is studying whether higher prices are justified. Joe Malinowski runs the comparison website The Energy Shop.