ASIC urged to investigate Beach Energy, Amplitude Energy

According to reports made by environmental advocacy group The Wilderness Society, Beach Energy and Amplitude Energy have potentially breached obligations under the Corporations Act 2001 after allegedly failing to present a “true” and “fair” view of their financial positions.

The society’s solicitors submitted to the ASIC alleging that Beach and Amplitude understated decommissioning liabilities in their 2025 financial statements.

Assumptions, potentially millions in liabilities

In its evidence, the society stated that the companies failed to adequately disclose and account for liabilities which are potentially worth millions of dollars, after assuming that offshore pipelines will be allowed to remain “in situ”.

Beach Energy has offshore oil and gas facilities in the Otway and Bass Basins, and Amplitude Energy carries out its operations in the Otway and Gippsland Basins.

According to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006, all infrastructure, property, and equipment associated with operations are to be removed at the cessation of oil and gas operations.

In a statement, Beach Energy said: Beach's restoration provisions are subject to the rigours of an annual financial statement audit...[in the report] our auditor Ernst and Young (EY) detail the procedures undertaken to gain comfort over the reasonableness of the restoration provision."

In its letter to ASIC, the society also requested that the conduct of EY be investigated for its role in auditing the companies’ accounts.

This is not the first time that the consulting firm has been scrutinised by a climate action group. In October 2025, the ACCC received a complaint from the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) against EY and Australian Energy Producers (AEP) after an EY report claimed “a continued role for gas in 2050” in “all scenarios” and said global gas demand would either “expand or remain steady to 2050”.

Impacts on shareholders

In its statement to the corporate watchdog, the society expressed concerns about inaccurate reporting of cleanup liabilities and potential impacts to the ability of shareholders to “make decisions about their ongoing interest in these companies.”

The Wilderness Society referred the matter to ASIC in a bid to ensure that “Amplitude and Beach have the financial means to clean up their operations at the end of life, to protect the marine environment from infrastructure riddled with toxic contaminants”.

Corporate campaigner for The Wilderness Society, Amanda Holly, said that Amplitude and Beach’s assumption that they can avoid cleanup costs by not removing property and equipment after the end of their operations is “fundamentally inconsistent with Australian law”.

“Australia’s oceans are more than resources to be exploited and dumping grounds for decaying fossil fuel infrastructure. They are alive, deeply interconnected, and essential to a healthy climate and future,” Holly said.

Companies decommissioning liabilities on a ‘significant scale’

Senior associate at Equity Generation Lawyers, Isobel Blomfield, said that Australia faces a significant scale of decommissioning liabilities – issues that are becoming more pressing as offshore projects wind down.

Blomfield said: “Shareholders need clear, accurate disclosures about these liabilities, and there is a problem if reporting falls short of what the law and accounting standards require.”

She added that oil and gas companies that do “not [face] up to the real costs of cleaning up their projects … pose significant risk to investors and to taxpayers who may be left footing the bill.”

Accounting Times has reached out to Amplitude Energy for further comment.