On 20 January 2025, the Dispute Settlement and Sanctions Committee (CoRDiS) of the French energy regulatory authority (CRE) imposed an €8 million fine on Danske Commodities A/S and a €4 million fine on Equinor ASA for manipulating annual capacity auctions at the virtual interconnection point between France and Spain (PIR Pirineos) in 2019 and 2020.
These penalties come under the REMIT Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011, which prohibits market manipulation and seeks to protect the integrity and transparency of the EU’s wholesale energy markets.
In its decision, CoRDiS found that Danske Commodities A/S, in collusion with Equinor ASA, had booked higher volumes of transmission capacity than those offered in the first round of PRISMA annual gas capacity auctions for PIR Pirineos in July 2019 and July 2020. This was done without the intention of acquiring such capacity, sending false or misleading signals regarding the demand for annual gas transmission capacity from France to Spain via the PIR Pirineos interconnection point.
The investigation revealed that the objective of this behaviour was to create market congestion and prevent the application of multipliers to the prices of gas transmission capacities on the infra-annual market, which are meant to incentivise the booking of annual transmission capacities. By placing non-genuine offers in the first round of auctions for annual gas transmission capacity and creating congestion, Danske Commodities A/S and Equinor ASA prevented the application of multipliers, reducing the price of gas transmission capacities on the infra-annual market and setting the market price at an artificial level.
CoRDiS considers this behaviour a violation of REMIT Article 5, which prohibits actions that give or are likely to give false or misleading signals about the supply, demand, or price of wholesale energy products, or which secure or are likely to secure the price at an artificial level.
ACER welcomes this first REMIT decision of 2025 and appreciates CRE’s continued efforts to strengthen market integrity.
