REMIT and artificial prices: is guidance from the case law finally emerging?

Background

Pursuant to the EU Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) of 2011, entering into any transaction or issuing any order to trade in wholesale energy products which secures, or attempts to secure, the price of one or more wholesale energy products at an artificial level, amounts to market manipulation. What is the notion of “artificial prices” under REMIT? Is guidance from the case law finally emerging?

This FSR Debate will look at some of the economic and legal issues involved in determining when prices may be set an artificial level – amounting to market manipulation.

In this context the debate will also look at a very recent NRA decision on artificial pricing. In late April 2021 the Spanish National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) published a decision in which it holds that the company Rock Trading World, S.A. manipulated the Spanish gas wholesale market between 3 and 7 November 2018, breaching the EU Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) of 2011. According to CNMC, Rock Trading World’s behaviour was likely to send false or misleading signals to the market as to the price of such gas wholesale energy products and secured the price formation process of the gas wholesale energy products at an artificial level, thus breaching REMIT, which prohibits market manipulation.

Draft Programme

Host:  Alberto Pototschnig | Florence School of Regulation

Introduction to the Debate and Opening Presentations

14.00 – 14.05   Leigh Hancher| Florence School of Regulation and Tilburg University

14.05 – 14.15   Martin Godfried | ACER

14.15 – 14.25    Guillermo Pérez Almendral | Simmons & Simmons Madrid

Panel Discussion: Introductory Remarks and Comments

Moderator:   Leigh Hancher | Florence School of Regulation and Tilburg University

14.25 – 14.45  Introductory remarks from the panellists

Panellists:   Fabien Roques | FSR and Compass Lexicon

                        Camilla Berg | Nord Pool

                        Nils-Henrik von der Fehr | Oslo University

14.45 – 15.20  Q&A from the audience

15.20 – 15.30  Concluding remarks

                         Alberto Pototschnig | Florence School of Regulation

                         Leigh Hancher | Florence School of Regulation and Tilburg University

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The focus of the debate series is on recent court cases, regulatory decisions, EU legislation, or public consultations to be discussed by a panel of experts. Learn more about the FSR series.