The Office of the Director, Melbourne CityLink, as part of its oversight responsibilities, appointed an accounting firm to undertake a two-stage inspection of the operator's customer account records (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.64) (stage one took place during 1999, prior to tolling commencement). This part of the review concluded that only 68 % of the records (93 accounts were examined in total) were complete and accurate. The remainder contained processing errors e.g. mistakes made by the operator's staff in entering customer data into company systems (determined through comparison with data supplied by customers on their account application forms) (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.64).
Stage two of the review (that was supposed to begin two weeks after tolling started), intended to examine whether the operator was imposing the correct tolls was scrapped. It is claimed that the operator strongly resisted the proposed scope of the of the inspection process (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.64). Even though the State has enforcement powers under The Melbourne CityLink Act 1995, it decided not to exercise this right as the operator threatened that it would assess each request for information made by the public partner "on a 'document-by-document' basis and possibly obtain formal legal advice at every request" (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.64). Despite these difficulties, the Victorian Auditor-General asserted that to be effective in monitoring the imposition of the tolls, the Office of the Director, Melbourne CityLink, should conduct periodic inspections of the operator's tolling systems and records (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.65).
In a separate matter, and during 2001, Transurban City Link (the private sector consortium) submitted a 'Materially Adverse Effect' claim of $35.8 million against the Victorian State Government (Minister for Transport 2001) claiming that construction works in Wurundjeri Way (Transurban City Link 2001: p.5) were resulting in a loss of revenue (Minister for Transport 2001) due to reduced traffic flows (based on Transurban City Link's own traffic volume predictions (Minister for Transport 2002)). In order to resolve the dispute, the partners enacted a formal dispute resolution mechanism, resulting in the use of an independent expert (Minister for Transport 2001). In July 2002, the Government announced that Henry Jolson QC (the independent expert) had found in favour of the public partner, stating that the original predictions relating to vehicle usage on the Bolte Bridge had been overestimated by Transurban City Link (Minister for Transport 2002). Thus, the finding saved the Victorian State Government a considerable sum of money.
A third example relating to the issue of conflict management is that the service provider, under the conditions of the Concession Deed, is entitled to impose an administration fee on users that do not have an e-tag or display an e-tag that is a different classification compared with the vehicle they are driving (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.60). In July 2001, the operator increased this fee from $1.10 to $2.00. The Victorian State Government claimed that it did not know about this increase until it was brought to its attention in January 2002 (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.60). The Government believed that the amount 'over-charged' (allegedly amounting to $1.3 million (Gray 2004)), should have been refunded to customers (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.60), however, the State decided not to enforce its request (under the Concession Deed or through legal action as both partners were unable to agree if the fee had been validly imposed). The partners instead reached a compromise deal in May 2002 where it was agreed that reimbursements to affected users would be waived in return for the operator reducing the fee to $1.20, providing free travel on CityLink during Melbourne Cup day 2002, providing an additional two days to users after travelling on the motorway in which they could purchase a pass (without being additionally charged), as well as giving an undertaking that it would provide the public partner with 30 days notice before imposing a new fee or raising an existing fee in future (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.60).