Since 28 December 2011, CRE’s role in monitoring the wholesale energy markets has been subject to the requirements of REMIT, the EU Regulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (Regulation (EU) N°1227/2011 of 25 October 2011), which applies directly in all Member States.
The Regulation introduced a specific supervisory framework for the electricity and gas markets, designed to reflect the physical characteristics of supply and demand.
It goes hand in hand with financial regulations, and requires wholesale energy market monitoring to take account of interactions with the carbon market, although emissions quotas are not classed as wholesale energy products according to the REMIT definition.
The main provisions of REMIT
The main elements of REMIT are:
- Prohibition of insider trading (Article 3);
- Prohibition of market manipulation (Article 5);
- Obligation of market participants to publish insider information (Article 4).
The Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) publishes non-binding guidelines on the application of REMIT for the national regulatory authorities. These guidelines clarify the definitions of wholesale energy products, wholesale energy markets and market participants, and explain how to comply with the obligation to publish insider information.
The fourth and final version of the ACER guidelines, dated 17 June 2016, details the obligations incumbent upon “persons professionally arranging transactions”, or PPATs.
Under Article L. 131-2 of the French Energy Code, CRE enforces Articles 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 15 of the Regulation. The body of law currently in force empowers CRE, within the scope of REMIT, to:
- Monitor the wholesale markets;
- Investigate suspected market abuses.
The CoRDiS has the power to impose sanctions for any breaches of the Regulation.
Scope of REMIT
To whom does REMIT apply?
The REMIT Regulation applies to market participants, i.e. any individual or legal entity engaged in transactions on the wholesale energy markets. The wholesale energy products concerned are contracts for the delivery of electricity or natural gas in the European Union, and contracts for the transmission of electricity or gas in the Union (and their derivatives), whether they are agreed on the spot or futures market.
REMIT does not apply to supply or distribution contracts with end consumers, except those with annual consumption in excess of 600 GWh.
Articles 3 and 5 of the Regulation, which concerns insider trading and market manipulation, does not apply to wholesale energy products which are also financial instruments subject to regulations on market abuses. These instruments are, however, concerned by the obligation to publish insider information imposed by Article 4 of REMIT.
Monitoring by CRE
CRE monitors orders and transactions of market participants (producers, traders, energy suppliers, etc.) likely to affect the French market, regardless of the country in which the counterparties are based or the way in which they are negotiated (bilateral transactions whether brokered or not, or transactions on the organised markets).
CRE monitors:
- Transactions agreed by a producer, trader or supplier on the wholesale energy market;
- Offers or bids made by these participants on the wholesale energy market;
- The technical and economic restrictions on these participants, and which influence their offers, bids and transactions.
CRE and the CO2 and capacity guarantees markets
Under Article L. 131-3 of the Energy Code, CRE is competent to monitor transactions conducted on the carbon market by participants active in the French electricity and gas market.
As part of this, CRE has the authority to ask questions of energy market participants if it observes unusual price or volume movements on the carbon market.
This competence goes hand in hand with financial regulations introduced in January 2018 classing CO2 quotas as financial instruments. CRE continues to monitor the carbon market as part of its role in monitoring the fundamentals of the energy market. In the course of this role, it may ask French energy market participants to provide specific information, particularly if unusual events are observed which affect both the carbon and electricity markets. Such events may be identified directly by CRE, the ACER or the financial regulators.
For the capacity mechanism, in accordance with Article L. 131-2 of the French Energy Code, CRE also enforces the prohibitions on market abuses (market manipulation and insider trading) and the obligation to publish insider information, as provided for by Articles 3, 4 and 5 of REMIT.