Accenture has hit back at energy supplier Centrica saying that it is shifting the blame for "a situation it created".

British Gas owner Centrica has initiated a £182m lawsuit against IT supplier Accenture, which it hired to implement a customer billing system in 2001.

The IT services firm insists that it met all the specifications and commitments required by its client, which had insisted on having many of the features it now finds problematic.

Centrica also conducted testing of the system before formally accepting it and only raised concerns after having been responsible for the system for a year, according to Accenture, which said Centrica has now been operating the system itself for over two years.

An Accenture spokesman said: "We are disappointed that Centrica is seeking to blame British Gas' past customer service problems on this system. Centrica is only trying to shift blame for a situation it created."

There is a question over whether this counts as an outsourcing contract, but the same considerations should apply, said Martyn Hart, chairman of the National Outsourcing Association.

"If you're asking someone to develop a major business-critical package for you, this shows that you should always use outsourcing principles even for development," he said.