The EU-wide framework that protects consumers and businesses from energy market manipulation and insider trading is commonly known as REMIT. This highly sophisticated framework involves multiple parties collecting and monitoring data, all working together to ensure the integrity of Europe's wholesale energy markets. Ultimately, national regulators are responsible for enforcing REMIT.
For the first time, ACER has published two reports on energy market surveillance, concerning:
- Persons professionally arranging transactions (PPATs): Analysing their preparedness to detect and report suspicious energy market activities.
- National energy regulatory authorities (NRAs): Focusing on their analysis of suspicious transaction and order reports (STORs) submitted by PPATs, as well as their enforcement actions and penalties.
Both reports are mandated by the revised REMIT Regulation (2024) which introduces new obligations for these trading intermediaries (called PPATs under the REMIT framework) and requires ACER to report on the follow-up actions taken by national energy regulators.
What are ACER's key findings and recommendations?
For persons professionally arranging transactions, ACER identified several areas for improvement in their surveillance practices, and recommends:
- Properly separating REMIT surveillance functions and requiring employees to declare any potential conflicts of interest;
- Defining and formalising the 'detect - analyse - notify - deter' REMIT procedures;
- Adopting an adequate surveillance system;
- Conducting regular audits.
For national regulators, ACER recommends improving their follow-up actions by:
- Actively engaging with PPATs;
- Reducing the number of cases at the review stage by promptly dismissing de-prioritised STORs;
- Allocating adequate dedicated resources (e.g. case handlers) to manage the growing number of REMIT cases;
- Ensuring timely communication with ACER on case activities.
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