In the meeting under its chairman Dr. Günther Rabensteiner in Leipzig on 13 June the exchange council of European Energy Exchange AG (EEX) adopted a code of conduct as a new element of the rules of EEX. In addition to the general set of rules of conduct for the market participants towards the public and their customers, the EEX code of conduct also specifies, in particular, requirements and bans prohibiting any form of manipulation of exchange trading and of the exchange prices as well as any unfair use of the exchange and its facilities.
With this code of conduct EEX closes loopholes, which the legislature has not regulated sufficiently for the energy market so far, in the framework of its autonomy. In this way, EEX accommodates the market’s need for uniform rules and regulations ap-proved internationally and reinforces the confidence which the public places in EEX, its pricing mechanism as well as its character of a European benchmark.
In September 2007, the exchange council of EEX commissioned its compliance committee to prepare general rules of conduct and a model for a best practice standard for energy exchanges. EEX and Powernext should introduce this standard in the frame-work of the harmonisation of their rules. This harmonised set of rules is intended to be-come binding for Europe as a vital example in the framework of the development of law in the medium to long term. This further cements the pioneering role of EEX and its co-operation partners in questions of exchange organisation and transparency also in a European context.
Expansion of the contracts on the Power Derivatives Market
In its meeting on 13 June, the exchange council has adopted an expansion of the time frame of the contracts on the EEX Power Derivatives Market. The Phelix Futures will be extended to in total nine months or eleven quarters (previously: six months or seven quarters). Discussions with the trading participants with regard to this have shown that an increasing number of traders is very much interested in delivery periods with a longer time horizon into the future. With this expansion of the contracts, the traders can now translate a further year into quarters in addition to the front year, which further in-creases the trading participants’ flexibility for trading strategies.
Staffing
The chairman of the exchange council, Dr. Günther Rabensteiner, thanked Dr. Wulf Lammert for his commitment on the exchange council of EEX. Dr. Lammert will resign from the council for reasons of age. The exchange council elected Mr. Lars Wlecke, Head of Trading Central Western Europe, E.ON Energy Trading AG, as his successor.
The exchange council of EEX is a body of the exchange defined in the German stock exchange act. It consists of in total 23 members that adequately represent the different interest groups and business circles on the exchange: In addition to the trading partici-pants with 18 representatives elected from within various groups (domestic as well as foreign transmission system operators – power trading companies, municipal utilities and regional suppliers, brokers and financial service providers as well as commercial consumers), four representatives of major associations (German Association of the Energy and Power Supply Industry, registered association (VIK), Federation of German Consumer Organisations, registered association (vzbv), German Association of Energy and Water Industries, registered association (BDEW) and the Federation of German Indus-tries, registered association (BDI)) and Prof. Wolfgang Pfaffenberger, the investors’ representative, are members of the council.