Banks and utilities must adapt to the new rules Banks and utilities need to make their case, be open and look beyond immediate troubles Life can be unfair and it often feels unfair even when it is not. Both JPMorgan Chase and UK energy companies such as Centrica know this feeling. Governments are tightening the rules for regulated industries that rely on state backing, urged on by their resentful citizens. The results of altering the cosy arrangements of the past are unpredictable and may well cause pain in the future. But companies must adapt. As ever, Warren Buffett, the investor, expressed it nicely in an interview with Bloomberg TV: "You've got to be like a wolf that bares its throat when it gets to the end . . . you cannot win." He referred to JPMorgan's likely $13bn settlement with federal and state regulators, but it applies equally to UK energy companies. If anything, JPMorgan is getting off comparatively lightly. It has put aside $23bn to pay for legal and regulatory costs - enough to cover that deal and a separate settlement with investors including BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Wall Street outrage at how Jamie Dimon's bank has been punished does not extend to turning down a ransom itself. Meanwhile, the big six UK energy suppliers face a struggle with politicians who have forced on them the multibillion-pound, multiyear costs of replacing coal-fired power with nuclear and renewables, and improving energy efficiency. They are threatened with price freezes and new taxes for passing on these costs and others to consumers. Banks and utilities have got nowhere by protesting that they are being unfairly treated. People who have suffered since the 2008 financial crisis have no time for complaints from enterprises they distrust. Even Mr Dimon, faced with the possibility of criminal charges against his bank, has bared his throat. What businesses regard as "fair" is often different from what consumers believe, especially when it involves rising prices. The perception gap was first explored almost 30 years ago by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel economics prize, and two fellow academics. When they asked a group of people what a company should do when a product was scarce - auction it at the highest price, allocate it by lottery or ask consumers to queue - they chose the last. Only 4 per cent thought an auction, the most efficient method in classical economics, was fairest. There is a very long history of angry consumer protests, even riots, when the price of essential goods and services rises, even if companies are passing on wholesale costs. It includes the southern bread riots in the US in the mid-1860s and recent fuel price riots in Sudan. Even Starbucks, which hardly sells a staple, faces a media onslaught in China for charging more for coffee than in the US, and earning a higher operating margin in Asia. "Starbucks can't justify high prices in China," was China Daily's headline. UK gas and electricity prices have risen in real terms by 41 per cent and 20 per cent since 2007, and climate change policies, including a carbon tax on energy from coal and gas plants, will add to suppliers" costs. EDF, the French utility company, has been guaranteed double the current wholesale price for electricity to build a UK nuclear plant. David Cameron yesterday promised to "roll back costs on energy bills" but Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has pledged a two-year price freeze, and Sir John Major, the former Tory prime minister, has called for a windfall tax. When British Gas, a division of Centrica, ventured on to Twitter to defend planned price rises, it was deluged with angry tweets. The banks" legitimacy problem related not to prices but the taxpayer support they received - including institutions such as JPMorgan that did not need a bailout - in the 2008 crisis. This included the Federal Reserve encouraging Mr Dimon to buy Bear Stearns by supporting $30bn of its worst assets. Most people, rightly, do not think it was fair for bankers to be rescued from their own folly in this way. Set against it, the unfairness of making JPMorgan suffer for misconduct at Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, its other acquisition during the crisis, is a mere balancing item. So what should these businesses - untrusted by consumers, regarded by politicians as soft targets, vulnerable to tougher regulation and abrupt rule changes - do? First, they should carry on making their case. It is not easy when few people want to listen and many are angry, but they need to plug away. We know why energy prices are rising. It is not inexplicable. It is because costs are rising," says Peter Atherton, an analyst at Liberum Capital. Eventually, that message is bound to sink in. Second, they should be more open. Banks and utilities often profit from opacity in how they trade and price products. Banks favour over the counter derivatives to exchange traded contracts; energy companies devise complex tariffs that make it hard for their customers to compare them easily. There is a price in consumer and regulatory trust for such tactics. Labour's best reform idea is to move to exchange trading of wholesale energy rather than bilateral contracts that favour big, vertically integrated companies. If energy companies have nothing to hide, they should not resist. Last, they must endure. When it gets through this, the worst might be over for JPMorgan (barring criminal charges). Energy companies will be in the maelstrom for some time but no politician wants to make their business impossible. Utilities, after all, have their uses.