On 7 January 2015, REMIT Implementing Acts entered into force, twenty days following their publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. To prevent and deter market abuse and increase transparency in wholesale energy markets, the REMIT Implementing Acts will trigger unprecedented real market monitoring by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). REMIT, the Regulation on Wholesale Energy Markets Integrity and Transparency, entered into force in December 2011 and is a sector-specific market monitoring framework aiming at preventing and detecting market abuse in European wholesale energy markets.
The REMIT Implementing Acts developed by the European Commission define the details of reporting under REMIT, drawing up the list of reportable contracts and derivatives; defining details, timing and form of reporting, and establishing harmonised rules to report that information to ACER. They enable ACER to collect information in relation to wholesale energy market transactions and fundamentals through the Agency’s REMIT Information System (ARIS), to analyse this data to detect market abuse and to report suspicious events to the competent National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs), which are responsible for investigating these matters further, and if required, imposing sanctions. Next to the Implementing Acts, ACER was tasked with developing several manuals – namely the Transaction Reporting User Manual (TRUM), the Manual of Procedures on transaction and fundamental data reporting, the Requirements for Registered Reporting Mechanisms (RRMs) and the list of Organised Market Places – to support all involved stakeholders in their transaction data reporting. Those documents were published on 7 January on ACER’s newly launched REMIT Portal.
The entry into force of the REMIT Implementing Acts triggers important deadlines for data reporting under REMIT. Market participants and third parties reporting on their behalf will have to: 1) within nine months, i.e. by 7 October 2015, report transactions executed at organised market places and fundamental data from the ENTSOs’ central information transparency platforms; and 2) within fifteen months, i.e. by 7 April 2016, report transactions in the remaining wholesale energy contracts (OTC standard and non-standard supply contracts, transportation contracts) and additional fundamental data.
In parallel, NRAs will have to open within three months after the adoption of the Implementing Acts, i.e. by 17 March 2015, websites allowing market participants to register before entering into transactions which have to be reported under the Implementing Acts. In June 2014, ACER already opened the platform to support the Centralised European Register of Market Participants (CEREMP) to NRAs for the national registration of market participants. By using CEREMP, many NRAs were already able to start the registration of market participants at national level well in advance of the deadline for establishing national registers of market participants. Only four NRAs opted for their own system to set up their national registers (AT, IT, RO, SI).