Basslink has officially raised a dispute with Hydro Tasmania over the failure of the subsea cable.

The Basslink cable transmits electricity and internet traffic to and from Tasmania.

Basslink has issued a Notice of Dispute to Hydro Tasmania (HT), under the Basslink Services Agreement (BSA), in respect of the failure of the subsea cable that led to the December 2015 outage of the Basslink interconnector.

Basslink has consistently claimed that the incident was a ‘Force Majeure Event’ under the BSA.

“Despite the independent investigation that was undertaken by independent experts appointed by Basslink, Cable Consulting International, which concluded that the cause of the incident was ‘unknown’, HT did not accept the incident was a ‘Force Majeure Event’ and withheld, amongst others, facility fees on the basis there was no Force Majeure Event,” Basslink said in a statement.

By issuing the notice, Basslink is seeking to recover money that it claims Hydro Tasmania has been withholding.