Energy Markets: Market Participants and Regulatory Developments

Vincent Kaminski

This chapter will offer a review of certain critical participants in the energy markets, such as exchanges, clearinghouses and brokers, as well as the users of their services. All these entities operate under a great deal of pressure arising from regulatory developments and technological progress in the area of information and communications networks. Another important group of participants are price-reporting agencies receiving increasing attention from the regulators, given how important they are to the functioning of the energy markets. We will start with a review of different classifications of market participants and provide a list of major categories of players. We will also discuss regulatory developments related to implementation of the Dodd–Frank Act (the Act) to the extent they affect operations of such market participants as exchanges, swap dealers and the end users of derivatives (the Act was also discussed in Chapter 6, in the context of its relationship with, and impact upon, energy market participants).¹¹This chapter should not be construed as an extensive and complete review of the Act. This is impossible for a number of reasons. Implementation of the provisions of