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Brisbane City Council has cancelled its contract with e-scooter company Beam after a tip from a whistleblower suggested it had "significantly" under-reported the size of its fleet.
The council will refer the Singapore firm to Australia's corporate watchdog and potentially police, alleging the company owes $330,000 in unpaid fees and exceeded safety caps by nearly a third in the 12 months to July — an average of 500 undeclared devices a day.
Council's investigation found the company had "systematically" exceeded its scooter cap.
Brisbane City Council transport chair Ryan Murphy said several Australian councils had been tipped off about the data anomalies.
"We have spent the last month investigating these allegations, and we have found significant breaches of the device cap by Beam, a systemic program," he said.
"There was over 222,000 occasions between July 2023 and July 2024 where they did not report all hireable devices."
Brisbane lord mayor Adrian Schrinner and transport chair Ryan Murphy (right). (ABC Radio Brisbane: Lucy Stone)
A Beam spokesperson said the company disagreed with Brisbane City Council's claims and that cancelling the contract was "highly premature".
The company earlier announced it would launch an independent audit into council claims.
Mr Murphy said Beam had let the council down "badly".
In 12 months, 220,000 scooters were in an "unknown state", which is intended to indicate a problem with connecting or a missing device.
In the same time, only 50 were listed as such by another operator.
"This is is massive. It appears to be systemic, and I think that's why you're seeing other cities like Auckland now terminating their mobility contracts with Beam," Mr Murphy said.
Last week, Auckland City Council accused Beam of concealing "intentional anomalies" that would have revealed it was running larger fleets than safety caps allowed.
Beam describes itself as the Asia-Pacific's leading micromobility company with e-vehicles in 60 cities.
It operates in 31 locations in Australia, including capitals Perth and Darwin, and regional areas including Cairns, Esperance and Bendigo.
Brisbane City Council has cancelled its contract with Beam. (ABC News: Curtis Rodda)
Auckland City Council has referred Beam to New Zealand police, alleging the company had found a way to "sidestep" the city's safety cap and run a fleet far larger than its license allowed.
In a statement last Tuesday, Auckland City Council said it had been provided "evidence of anomalies" in cities across Australasia "by a concerned private individual" in early August.
"Limits on e-scooter numbers are in place for the safety of other road and footpath users and to minimise nuisance in and around our city," the statement said.
"The evidence suggests that these anomalies were intentional, with Beam providing misleading data to Ride Report to appear compliant with cap limits."
Wellington City Council has suspended the company's license for the same reason.
Beam operates in 31 Australian locations, both capital cities and regional areas. (ABC Kimberley: Mya Kordic )
In a statement, a Beam Mobility spokesperson said the company was disappointed Brisbane City Council had cancelled the contract and that it was "surprising given our positive interactions with council on this matter to date".
"We disagree with the reported assertions and claims made by BCC on this matter and believe council's findings are highly premature. We will now be reviewing our options," the spokesperson said.
"As previously announced, Beam has appointed external advisers to manage an independent audit process, to examine the issues that have been raised regarding Beam's fleet management system.
"Beam takes its obligations regarding fleet management seriously and is determined to work with its council partners on these issues."
Brisbane council had only recently signed a new contract with Beam, due to run until 2027.
Mr Murphy said Beam e-scooters would be removed and replaced with ones from Lime, another of the city's operators.