Disputes related to electricity meter fraud, under-metering, and allegedly evaded electricity consumption appear to be on the rise. For a company, contesting an Enedis claim, however, requires distinguishing between the observation of an anomaly and proof of the actual consumption owed.
The scenario is often similar.
Following an inspection, Enedis finds an anomaly affecting a meter or its environment: open meter, broken seal, modification of wiring, branch circuit, anomaly affecting one or more phases or other intervention likely to have reduced the consumption actually recorded.
The company then receives a proposed adjustment or an invoice corresponding to reconstructed consumption, sometimes over several years.
The amounts can be considerable.
Faced with such a claim, the recipient's first reaction is often to focus their defense on a single question: who tampered with the meter?
This question is important, but it is far from exhausting the debate.
Analysis of case law shows, on the contrary, that an adjustment of electricity consumption is based on a series of distinct demonstrations.
The finding of an anomaly is not, in itself, sufficient to demonstrate that the entire amount claimed is due.
A new legal framework for findings, which does not by itself resolve the issue of proving the debt
Law No. 2025-594 of June 30, 2025 created ArticleL. 322-11-1 of the Energy Code, which came into force on July 2, 2025.
This text allows the network manager's approved and sworn agents to observe, remotely or on site, certain minor destructions, damages or deteriorations affecting the metering devices.
When such an infringement is observed, a report is drawn up and sent to the user concerned as well as to the public prosecutor; the electricity supplier is also informed.
The text also allows the manager to bill the user, directly or through the supplier as appropriate, for a corrected consumption corresponding to the volume related to the damage to the device, as well as the costs of repair.
However, this device must be placed back in its exact field of view.
Article L. 322-11-1 now establishes the power to investigate and certain consequences attached to damage to metering devices. However, it does not constitute a general regime applicable to all metering errors or to all reconstructions of consumption.
Most importantly, in its current wording, it does not establish a general method for calculating allegedly evaded consumption and does not expressly attribute to the report any particular probative force regarding the amount of the debt.
Therefore, we must distinguish between two questions:
- the finding of damage to the counting device;
- demonstration of the actual consumption due and its amount.
This distinction is essential.
The regulatory framework continues to be clarified. In its deliberation no. 2026-127 of June 17, 2026, the Energy Regulatory Commission issued a favorable opinion on a draft decree concerning the procedures for accrediting and swearing in agents responsible for these assessments. The draft decree specifically addresses the duration of accreditation, prior training, and the taking of the oath.
It does not establish a general method for reconstructing consumption.
The power to establish facts is therefore becoming clearer. The question of how to move from establishing facts to quantifying a debt remains separate.
- A meter anomaly does not, in itself, mean that the company has committed fraud
The first question concerns the materiality of the facts.
What exactly does the official report state?
We need to distinguish three levels here.
What the officer materially observes
For example :
- a disconnected cable;
- a missing seal;
- a derivation;
- an intervention on a current transformer;
- an anomaly affecting one or more phases.
The technical interpretation given to it
For example :
- the existence of sub-counting;
- the inability of the meter to record part of the energy actually consumed.
The consequences that are subsequently drawn from this
For example :
- the claim that the anomaly has existed for several years;
- the estimation of a specific rate of undercounting;
- the regeneration of several hundred thousand kWh.
These different proposals are not the same.
The official report must therefore be distinguished from subsequent reconstruction operations. The fact that an officer physically observes an alteration of the device is not, in itself, sufficient to establish:
- since when it exists;
- what exact impact it has on the counting;
- how much energy escaped recording;
- nor what amount should ultimately be charged.
Intervention on a meter also raises the question of its responsibility.
Where is the meter located? Who had access to it? Was the premises previously occupied by another company? Have any electricians or maintenance companies been involved? Is the device installed in a common area or one accessible to third parties?
Case law has already had the opportunity to distinguish the existence of manipulation from the identification of its perpetrator.
But this distinction must be handled in both directions: the absence of evidence that the manager or the company personally manipulated the meter does not automatically mean that no consumption can be claimed from him.
Therefore, a distinction must be made:
the perpetrator of the possible manipulation
of :
the one who actually benefited from the electricity.
- Contesting an Enedis claim: how long has the anomaly existed?
This question is one of the most important.
Enedis may notice an anomaly on the day of its intervention.
However, this does not automatically allow us to determine when it appeared.
The Court of Cassation established a particularly important principle on this point in its judgment Cass. com., June 9, 2021, No. 19-19.353, BTR company.
In this case, an agent discovered in 2009 that a meter used by a company had been tampered with. Enedis then recalculated consumption figures for the five years preceding the discovery of the anomaly.
The Court of Appeal had validated this period, referring in particular to the five-year statute of limitations.
The Court of Cassation pronounces a partial reversal.
It considers that the rules of prescription are inadequate to demonstrate that the company had benefited from the fraud during this entire period and recalls that it is up to EDF and Enedis to prove the principle and existence of the debt for the years for which payment is requested.
The distinction is fundamental:
The statute of limitations indicates the extent to which a debt can potentially be claimed. It does not demonstrate how long a fraud actually existed.
Faced with a regularization process spanning several years, the question to ask is therefore very concrete:
What objective element allows us to retain this departure date?
This may include, in particular:
- of a break in the history of consumption;
- of an event recorded by the counter;
- of a technical intervention;
- from a previous inspection;
- of a change of operator;
- or any other element that would allow the appearance of the anomaly to be dated.
Otherwise, the chosen period may only be a hypothesis.
- Proof of an anomaly is not proof of the number of kWh evaded
Even when a manipulation is established, a second question remains:
How much electricity has actually not been accounted for?
The issue here is no longer to demonstrate the anomaly, but to demonstrate the amount of the debt.
However, the transition from the technical anomaly to the number of kWh billed generally requires a reconstruction.
Let's take a simple example.
If the inspection establishes that two out of three phases were no longer correctly recorded, can we deduce that two-thirds of the actual consumption escaped the meter?
Not automatically.
It all depends in particular on how the equipment is connected and the actual distribution of electrical loads.
The reality of the anomaly is therefore not always sufficient to determine its metrological impact.
It is in this area that technical evidence becomes decisive.
- How are the consumptions reconstituted?
To contest an Enedis claim, it is necessary in particular to understand how the consumption figures were reconstructed.
Several methods can be used.
The history of the same establishment
The first step is to examine the known consumption patterns of the site over other periods.
This method can be relevant, provided that truly comparable periods are compared.
In particular, it is necessary to verify whether the activity has remained the same:
- same hours;
- same equipment;
- same surface area;
- same workforce;
- same opening days;
- same level of activity.
Consumption observed three years prior does not automatically constitute a reliable reference if the operation has changed significantly.
Consumption after the meter was repaired
A second method consists of comparing the consumption observed after the replacement or repair of the device.
This data can be particularly informative when site activity remains stable.
If an establishment historically consumed 120 MWh per year, then 115 MWh after meter replacement, a reconstitution at 250 MWh per year will require a particularly solid technical justification.
Comparable delivery points
Finally, Enedis can use comparable delivery points.
This method is not legally excluded in principle.
But it is also necessary that the selected establishments have sufficiently similar characteristics.
A restaurant open seven days a week cannot be considered, without caution, the same as an establishment closed two days a week.
A business of 800 m² does not consume the same amount of goods and services as a business of 300 m².
A bakery equipped with electric ovens is not comparable without adjustment to a bakery using another energy source.
Therefore, it is necessary to be able to know:
- the typology of establishments used as references;
- their subscribed power;
- their surface;
- their schedules;
- their equipment;
- their geographical location;
- and, more broadly, the criteria that led to considering them as comparable.
The question is not simply whether a reconstruction method was applied.
We need to determine:
if it reasonably allows us to reconstruct the consumption of that particular company.
- Company-specific data can be crucial in contesting an Enedis claim based on theoretical consumption
An effective defense should not be limited to criticizing the calculation being used against it.
It should, when possible, offer an alternative interpretation of the site's actual consumption.
Several pieces of data can be particularly useful:
- invoice history;
- previous consumption;
- consumption figures after the meter replacement;
- turnover;
- opening days and hours;
- staff;
- closing periods;
- works ;
- evolution of the area under cultivation;
- installation or removal of energy-intensive equipment.
For franchise networks or companies with multiple establishments, consumption at another truly comparable establishment within the same network can also be a relevant indicator.
Accounting and operating data can therefore become genuine pieces of evidence.
They allow us to compare theoretical consumption with the economic reality of the company.
- It is also necessary to verify who is responsible for the expenses
This question takes on particular importance when several companies have succeeded one another on the same site.
Enedis can demonstrate that a certain amount of electricity was consumed between two dates.
It remains to be seen who consumed it.
Some recent decisions have rejected claims when Enedis established the existence of consumption at a delivery point, but not that the company being sued had actually occupied the premises for the entire period or consumed all the kWh claimed.
It is therefore essential to reconstruct precisely:
- the dates of entry into the premises;
- changes of operator;
- fund transfers;
- work periods;
- any other potential users of the site.
Proof of consumption on a meter is not, in itself, proof of consumption by the defendant being sued.
- kWh alone is not enough: their value must also be controlled
Even when the volume of electricity can be established, it still remains to be verified how it is converted into euros.
A complaint may include, in particular:
- the cost of energy;
- the delivery;
- different pricing periods;
- taxes;
- inspection fees;
- costs related to the intervention of an agent;
- costs for restoring the device.
Each of these positions must be identified.
It is also important to distinguish the role of the supplier — EDF, Engie or another operator — from that ofEnedis, the network manager.
Depending on the nature of the consumption and the contractual situation of the customer, the sums claimed may be based on different grounds and may not be owed to the same party.
The real question is therefore:
Who is claiming what, and on what grounds?
- How to contest an Enedis claim: what documents should you request?
Before contesting an Enedis claim and before any acknowledgment of debt or request for payment plan, it is advisable to obtain the documents allowing verification of the calculation.
These include:
- from the inspection report;
- photographs;
- of the intervention report;
- of the meter identification;
- from the history of interventions;
- indexes;
- consumption curves when they exist;
- of the reconstitution method;
- of the justification for the period chosen;
- coefficients applied;
- data used as comparables;
- full details of the financial valuation.
It may also be helpful to request the raw data used in the calculation.
A simple indication that the calculation was carried out "in accordance with the Enedis method" does not, by itself, allow for the verification of a debt.
It is necessary to be able to understand and reconstruct the calculation.
- Expertise can become a determining factor
These disputes present a particular difficulty: most of the technical elements are initially held and analyzed by Enedis.
The company may therefore find itself forced to discuss a technical finding, an analysis of the meter and a reconstruction method developed from data to which it does not have direct access.
When the amounts involved are significant or the anomaly is technically complex, consulting an independent electrical expert or metrologist may be advisable.
A court-ordered expert assessment based on Article 145 of the Code of Civil Procedure may also be considered, particularly when:
- the meter has been removed;
- a laboratory analysis is cited;
- its condition or traceability are being discussed;
- The impact of the manipulation on the count is disputed;
- The reconstruction method presents a significant financial challenge.
The objective is then to place in the context of the adversarial process evidence which, initially, was mainly compiled within the framework of the manager's operations.
- What strategy should be adopted?
Challenging an Enedis claim therefore requires not stopping at the mere existence of an anomaly.
A defense should not always be built around a single assertion:
"We did not commit fraud."
When this argument is valid, it naturally needs to be developed.
But it is often useful to also reason in a subsidiary way.
Even assuming that an anomaly is established, the applicant must still be able to explain:
- why it is attributable to the company;
- since what date it existed;
- what effect did it have on the meter;
- how many kWh have actually escaped counting;
- why these consumptions are attributable to the company;
- how they were valued.
The dispute can therefore concern the amount of the adjustment even when the existence of an anomaly is no longer seriously debatable.
Not just contesting the fraud: deconstructing the claim
Analyzing the legal framework and case law leads us to abandon an overly simplistic view:
Fraud detected = invoice due.
The reasoning should rather be as follows:
anomaly → qualification → attribution → period → impact on counting → volume → valuation → creditor.
The weakness of one of these links can affect all or part of the claim.
ARST Avocats has developed a method for analyzing these cases based precisely on this breakdown of the claim and on comparing the data used by Enedis with the company's own elements: consumption history, actual operating conditions, occupancy dates, equipment and, when necessary, independent technical analysis.
When faced with a claim concerning allegedly evaded consumption, an early analysis of the report, the period considered, and the method of reconstruction often makes it possible to quickly identify the points that need to be discussed.
For any question relating to an Enedis, EDF or Engie claim concerning alleged fraud, under-metering or reconstructed consumption, ARST Avocats can examine the technical and legal elements of the case and determine the possible methods of contestation.
