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IFIEC RESPONSE ON THE ACER REMIT CONSULTATION
General remarks:
CEFIC-IFIEC welcomes REMIT to improve the confidence of the whole sales market
by setting common rules on the prohibition of market abuse. However the current
Regulation contains a lot unclear definitions and leads to unacceptable not
answered d questions and uncertainty. An example is the definition of inside
information’ meaning information of a precise nature which has not
been made public, which relates, directly or indirectly, to one or more
wholesale energy products and which, if it were made public, would be likely
to significantly affect the prices of those wholesale energy products. Industrial
end users buy energy for own use and not for trading. It is hard to consider under
what circumstances these trades related to its sourcing will significantly affect the
prices. It is more likely that the opposite is true; in case end-consumers are forced to
trade for instance because of an unplanned shut down, suppliers are able to abuse
this information.
For the European energy intensive Industry it is to be expected that costs will rise
significantly, when the 600 GWh limit per year will be applied. Unnecessary costs
will be the consequence.
Question 1
Do you agree with the proposed definitions? If not, please indicate alternative
proposals.
We recommend to be aligned as much as possible with the definitions used in other
Regulations or general accepted (Master) agreements like EFET etc.
Question 2
What are your views regarding the details to be included in the records of
transactions as foreseen in Annex II?
For end-users like the CEFIC-IFIEC members the records of the transactions are
much too detailed and will lead to a lot of administration.
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Do you agree that a distinction should be made between standardised and nonstandardised contracts?
CEFIC-IFIEC supports the proposal to make a distinction between standardized and
non-standardized contracts. The administrative and legal burden for nonstandardized contracts will be higher than for standardized contracts. As far as nonstandardized products with end-consumers are concerned it is not very likely that
these contracts will be used for market abuse. On the other hand we can imagine
that non-standardized contracts in the gas industry or in the power sector are much
more flexible and will contain clauses that in case these will be executed its related
transactions potentially could have a significant effect on whole sale process
Do you agree with the proposal on the unique identifier for market participants?
IFIEC agrees that there should be a unique identifier for each market participant.
IFIEC recommends creating a process as easy und user friendly as possible
Question 3
Do you agree with the proposed way forward to collect orders to trade from
organised market places, i.e. energy exchanges and broker platforms? Do you think
that the proposed fields in Annex II.1 will be sufficient to capture the specificities of
orders, in particular as regards orders for auctions?
IFEC like to support to collect data based on the most efficient and cost effective
way. Collecting data via organized markets placed could be efficient. However
ACER suggests collecting this information on a continuous basis. Continuous could
mean real time or once a day or once a week etc. Depending on the frequency the
costs could be low or very high. IFIEC expects that these costs will be passed
through to the end consumers. If ACER manages to get the information needed at
the lowest cost IFIEC supports the proposal.
Question 4
Do you agree with the proposed way forward concerning the collection of
transactions in non-standardised contracts? Please indicate your view on the
proposed records of transactions as foreseen in Annex II.2, in particular on the fields
considered mandatory.
IFIEC supports the approach.
Question 5
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Please indicate your views on the proposed collection of scheduling/nomination
information. Should there be a separate Annex II.3 for the collection of
scheduling/nomination data through TSOs or third parties delegated by TSOs?
IFIEC sees no problem when TSOs or other third parties submit these information to
ACER, however our main concernis related to the confidentiality.
Question 6
What are your views on the above-mentioned list of contracts according to Article
8(2)(a) of the Regulation (Annex III)? Which further wholesale energy products
should be covered? Do you agree that the list of contracts in Annex III should be
kept rather general? Do you agree that the Agency should establish and maintain an
updated list of wholesale energy contracts admitted to trading on organised market
places similar to ESMA’s MiFID database? What are your views on the idea of
developing a product taxonomy and make the reporting obligation of standardised
contracts dependent from the recording in the Agency’s list of specified wholesale
energy contracts?
For the European Industrial end users of gas and electricity it is to be expected that
costs will rise significantly, when the 600 GWh limit per year will be applied.
Unnecessary costs will be the consequence.
We are in favour to develop a product taxonomy and make the reporting obligation
of standardized contract dependent from the recording in the Agency’s list assuming
that is proposal will increase efficiency al lower the costs.
ACER recommendation 3 regarding the list of Annex III does not cover contracts in
balancing markets. IFIEC strongly recommend adding contracts and trading in the
balancing market because this market is very sensible for market abuse
Question 7
Which of the three options listed above would you consider being the most
appopriate concerning the de minimis threshold for the reporting of wholesale
energy transactions? In case you consider a de minimis threshold necessary, do you
consider that a threshold of 2 MW as foreseen in Option B is an appropriate
threshold for small producers? Please specify your reasons.
The overall goal of REMIT is to prevent market abuse, which is totally supported by
IFIEC. Furthermore the reporting obligations should be kept to a minimum and not
create unnecessary costs or administrative burdens for market participants. With the
current proposal, this requirement will be missed, regarding industrial power plants.
The European industry has no natural incentive to use these plants for market
abuse. The primary goal of industrial power plants is to sustain the production at
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efficient costs. IFIEC therefore asks to exclude industrial power plants from any
reporting obligation.
Question 8
Are there alternative options that could complement or replace the three listed
above?
Question 9
Do you agree with the proposed approach of a mandatory reporting of transactions
in standardised contracts through RRMs?
IFIEC like to support manatory reporting by a Registered Reporting Mechanism
(RMM) assuming this would increase efficiency and decrease costs. Again the
safeguard of the confidentiality is one of the most important concerns of IFIEC
Question 10
Do you believe the Commission through the implementing acts or the Agency when
registering RRMs should adopt one single standardised trade and process data
format for different classes of data (pre-trade/execution/post-trade data) to facilitate
reporting and to increase standardisation in the market? Should this issue be left to
the Commission or to the Agency to define?
Yes, IFIEC believes that there should be one single standardised trade and process
data format for different classes of data. This must also be used on national level.
The worst case would be, if the consumers have to implement several new ITsystems.
Question 11
Do you agree that market participants should be eligible to become RRMs
themselves if they fulfil the relevant organisational requirements?
Yes, IFIEC agrees.
Question 12
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In your view, should a distinction be made between transactions in standardised and
non-standardised contracts and reporting of the latter ones be done directly to the
Agency on a monthly basis?
IFIEC support this proposal at the condition that , that reporting data from
standardised contracts the next work day of non-standardized products on a monthly
basis may not lead to high IT investment costs.
Question 13
In view of developments in EU financial market legislation, would you agree with the
proposed approach for the avoidance of double reporting?
Yes, IFIEC supports the proposed approach. The avoidance of double reporting
must be a general rule. Especially in interaction with national regulation.
Question 14
Do you agree with the proposed approach concerning reporting channels?
Yes, IFIEC agrees.
Question 15
In your view, how much time would it take to implement the above-mentioned
organisational requirements for reporting channels?
As soon as possible, but preferable not longer than one year
Question 16
Do you agree with this approach of reporting inside and transparency information?
From the process perspective IFIEC agrees, but IFIEC still sees room for market
abuse which could be used by producers. The detailed answer could be found
in an IFIEC response published before which we will attach to this questionnaire.
Question 17
Please indicate your views on the proposed way forward on the collection of
regulated information.
The data should collect as efficient as possible. TSO as data collectors could help
this process.
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Question 18
Do you agree with the proposed approach for the reporting of regulated information?
Please indicate your view on the proposed mandatory reporting of regulated
information through RIS and transparency platforms. Should there remain at least
one reporting channel for market participants to report directly to the Agency?
Assuming publication via RIS is the most effective and secure way, IFIEC supports
this proposal
Question 19
The recommendation does not foresee any threshold for the reporting of regulated
information. Please indicate whether, and if so why, you consider a reporting
threshold for regulated information necessary.
IFIEC is not only in favour to introduce a threshold for the reporting data, but also to
improve the definition of inside information in general in and relating to the condition
that it “would be likely to significantly affect the prices” in particular
Moreover IFIEC-CEFIC insists to exclude data from industrial users as long as it is
not plausible that these trades will significantly affect the prices or will lead to market
abuses.
Question 20
What is your view on the proposed timing and form of reporting?
IFIEC supports the approach.
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