REMIT: The Energy Anti-abuse Rule

Aviv Handler

REMIT – the Regulation of the wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency – was published in the Official Journal in December 2011. As its name suggests, this regulation was intended to promote market transparency and provide confidence in the workings of the wholesale energy market. It was conceived as part of the “third energy package”, which aims to bring together member states’ energy markets under one framework. As such, it applies to those in the power and gas markets, where “gas” also includes LNG.

REMIT also came at a time when public confidence in the concept of “markets” was low, in part due to scandals in the financial world and in part due to issues in the energy market. REMIT is therefore an “energy version” of financial anti-abuse legislation, in particular MAR (see Chapter 5). REMIT takes concepts found in financial anti-abuse legalisation, such as those relating to inside information and manipulation, and applies them to wholesale energy markets.

THE FOUR PILLARS OF REMIT

Conceptually, REMIT has four “pillars”:

1. inside information;
2. market manipulation;
3. data reporting; and
4. market participant registration.

The rules around inside information