The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has today released the final Compliance Reporting Procedures and Guidelines developed under the National Energy Retail Law (Retail Law) and the final Statement of Approach to compliance with the Retail Law and Rules. The guideline and statement of approach will take effect from 1 July 2012.
The Retail Law includes new roles for the AER in monitoring, investigating, enforcing and reporting on compliance by regulated entities with obligations under the Retail Law and Rules. To support these functions, the Retail Law provides wide ranging information gathering powers and requires the AER to produce compliance procedures and guidelines. The AER has also released the Statement of Approach to compliance with the Retail Law and Rules, providing information to stakeholders on how the AER will approach its compliance and enforcement responsibilities under the Retail Law.
The AER commenced consultation on approaches to these new roles with the release of an Issues Paper in May 2010. A draft decision and preliminary drafts of the guideline and statement of approach were released in December 2010. The AER released a second draft guideline and statement of approach in March 2011. These papers, and written submissions received in response to them, are available on the AER’s website.
The AER has used this consultation to develop the final guideline and statement of approach released with this notice.