This European Regulation establishes rules prohibiting abusive practices affecting wholesale energy markets, understood as the set of spot and forward markets, with physical or financial settlement, for electricity and natural gas, in each of the Member States.

Specifically, through REMIT, prohibitions are established regarding the execution of transactions with insider information (Article 3) and market manipulation or attempted market manipulation (Article 5), as well as the obligation to publish insider information (Article 4).

Additionally, REMIT establishes a specific regulatory framework for the supervision of the wholesale energy market, promoting coordination between the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and national regulatory authorities for the performance of this supervisory function.

REMIT Implementing Regulation

REMIT establishes a series of obligations and prohibitions for market participants. These participants are defined in the Regulation as "any person, including transmission system operators, who carry out transactions, including the placing of orders to trade, in one or more wholesale energy markets" (Article 2, paragraph 7).

Since the entry into force of REMIT (on December 28, 2011), market participants must comply with the following prohibitions and obligations:

• Prohibition of trading on inside information (Article 3)
• Prohibition of market manipulation or attempted market manipulation (Article 5)
• Obligation to publish inside information (Art. 4.1)
• Obligation to notify ACER and the competent national regulatory authority when applying the exemptions set out in Article 3.4.b and Article 4.2

Additionally, once the REMIT implementing acts are adopted by the European Commission, market participants must comply with the following obligations:

• Registration of market participants (Article 9): within a maximum period of three months from the adoption of the European Commission's implementing acts (i.e., by March 17, 2015), national regulatory authorities will create national registers of market participants, which they will keep updated. Before carrying out any transaction subject to the obligation to report it to the Agency in accordance with Article 8, paragraph 1, market participants must have registered with the national regulatory authority of the Member State in which they are established or reside or, if they are not established or do not reside in the European Union, with that of a Member State in which they operate.
• Reporting of data on transactions (orders and trades) carried out in the wholesale energy market, as well as fundamental market data (Article 8): starting nine months after the adoption of the European Commission's implementing acts (i.e., from October 7, 2015), market participants or, on their behalf, the person/authority authorized to do so, will provide the Agency with a list of the transactions they have carried out in the wholesale energy market, including orders to trade, as well as fundamental market data.  

Market participants will effectively and timely disseminate the inside information in their possession related to companies or facilities that they themselves, or their parent or affiliated company, own or manage, or over which such participants or companies have operational responsibilities, whether wholly or partially. Such dissemination will include information related to the capacity and utilization of production, storage, consumption, or transportation facilities for electricity or natural gas, or related to the capacity and utilization of LNG facilities, including the planned or unplanned unavailability of such facilities (Article 4.1).

Market participants are required to notify ACER and the competent national regulatory authority when applying the exemptions set out in Article 3.4.b (coverage of immediate physical losses resulting from unplanned outages) and in Article 4.2 (exceptional delay in the publication of inside information to avoid harming legitimate interests).

To facilitate the notification obligation for market participants, ACER has developed a specific web application accessible through the following links:

• I want to notify an exemption under Article 3.4.b
• I want to notify an exemption under Article 4.2 

Article 9 of REMIT establishes the obligation for wholesale energy market participants, who carry out operations that must be reported to ACER (Article 8.1), to register with the national regulatory authority of the Member State in which they are established or reside or, if they are neither established nor reside in the European Union, with the authority of a Member State in which they operate. On June 26, 2012, ACER adopted decision no. 01/2012, through which it defined the format that the market participants' registration should have:

(MISSING DOCUMENT OF DECISION 01/2012 TO ATTACH)

In the Spanish market, market participants must register with the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC), as established in the Resolution creating the Spanish registry of wholesale energy market participants in compliance with Article 9 of Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council, on the integrity and transparency of the wholesale energy market.

Access to the registry is done through the following application: 

Access to the Spanish Registry of Market Participants

Article 8 of REMIT establishes the obligation for participants in the wholesale energy market, either directly or through a person or entity authorized to act on their behalf, to report to ACER the list of transactions carried out in the wholesale energy market, including orders to execute transactions, as well as fundamental market data.

This data reporting obligation will come into force nine months after the adoption of the implementing acts of the European Commission (that is, from October 7, 2015).

Through these implementing acts, adopted via Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1348/2014 of December 17, 2014, the European Commission determines the list of contracts and derivatives (including orders), as well as the fundamental market data, that must be reported to ACER, with details of the information to be reported and the communication procedure.

To comply with the data reporting obligation for transactions in the wholesale energy market, as well as their fundamental data, ACER, through its REMIT portal, provides a series of support documents that can be accessed through the following link:

Acer Documents

Article 15 of REMIT establishes that persons professionally arranging transactions in wholesale energy products must notify the national regulatory authority, as soon as possible, if they reasonably suspect that a transaction may constitute a breach of Articles 3 and 5 of the Regulation. This article has been applicable since the entry into force of REMIT on December 28, 2011.

To facilitate the notification obligation for persons professionally arranging transactions, ACER has developed a specific web application. 

Notification of reasonable suspicion about a transaction