On 19 December 2025, the AER instituted proceedings in the Federal Court against four subsidiaries of Origin Energy Limited (collectively, Origin) for alleged breaches of the National Energy Retail Rules (Retail Rules) and National Energy Retail Law (Retail Law).
The proceedings relate to Origin allegedly continuing to receive payments from Centrepay customers who had closed their accounts with Origin and had fully paid all amounts they owed.
The AER alleges that Origin failed to inform affected customers about these overcharged payments or refund them within the timeframe required by the Retail Rules. The AER also alleges that Origin breached the Retail Law by failing to establish policies, systems and procedures to monitor compliance with the Retail Rules.
The AER alleges that Origin knew that its systems were processing payments in this way as early as 2017 and put on hold a previously approved process that could have prevented further payments from occurring.
The AER is seeking orders for pecuniary penalties, declarations, customer remediation, a compliance program (to be independently reviewed) and costs.