Update on disclosure of REMIT inside information to ACER
| | Product Manager Business Unit Utilities, SEEBURGER
Read on for details on the changes and how it affects your company. As of January 1, 2021, companies must disclose their inside information to ACER via an Inside Information Platform (IIP) in accordance with the Regulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT), EU Regulation 1227/2011, Art. 4 Par. 1. According to ACER[1], publication on your own company website, which has been practiced up to now, is no longer permissible.
What is REMIT inside information?
Inside information, also known as urgent market message (UMM), is information that can significantly influence the prices of wholesale energy products. Such inside information includes, but is not limited to, information about the capacity, utilization, planned and unplanned availability of facilities for the transmission, storage or generation of electricity and gas. This is defined in Art. 4, Par. 1 of the REMIT Regulation.
What is the minimum size of a power or gas facility that requires REMIT inside information to be published?
In short: there is currently no defined threshold above which a planned or unplanned unavailability becomes inside information and must be disclosed. The 100 MW limit known from other regulatory requirements does not apply under REMIT. The definition of inside information is regulated in Art. 2, Par. 1 of REMIT[2]. In the 5th edition of the Guidance on REMIT, ACER has illustrated by means of two examples how to assess whether a certain event constitutes inside information that must be disclosed[3].
Unfortunately, this is not a clear regulation with a clear limit. We therefore share the view of the companies that are choosing to disclose a little more than they would like in order to avoid heavy fines, not to mention the potential damage to their reputation for not publishing.
How can my company meet the ACER requirement starting 01.01.2021?
- Our recommendation is the safe option: Be prepared to report inside information in the future, whether you expect it or not. There are ways to do this which cost about as much as a monthly cell phone fee for one person. SEEBURGER provides the European Transparency Platform as a public cloud service. Many companies or groups of companies of all sizes are opting for this secure path and are recommending it to their associated public utilities or customers.
- Obtain internal or external legal advice to certify that you are not affected, or to estimate that you will never have inside information in the future. The question with this option is whether this certification or estimation is possible, and how often you need to repeat the process to avoid being accused of a criminal omission in the future.
- Take a risk and without legal advice, judge for yourself that you will never have inside information in the future. This option is being chosen by some smaller companies.
We assume that the unavailability of power plants far below the 100 MW limit will be reported. All market participants, regardless of whether they have reportable information according to REMIT Art. 4, Par. 1 in the future, must indicate in the Centralised European Register of Energy Market Participants (CEREMP) where they publish their inside information.
How can SEEBURGER help you publish REMIT inside information?
SEEBURGER provides the European Transparency Platform for the publication of REMIT inside information on the public website: transparency.seeburger.com as a public cloud service free of charge to all market participants. In addition, the information published jointly by all market participants is transmitted to ACER via an ATOM feed.
To publish REMIT inside information you have to register once in the SEEBURGER cloud. After registration you can easily enter your inside information in the protected area. You will be guided through the important details of the report, while tool tips provide assistance and drop-down lists facilitate the entry. Your submitted reports can be viewed and edited anytime. The data is archived for five years and is available for export. The fully automatic transfer of UMMs as CSV or ACER XML is also available.
[1] ACER, FAQ on REMIT fundamental data and inside information reporting, Oct. 2020: https://documents.acer-remit.eu/wp-content
[2] Official Journal of the European Union, Oct. 2020: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1602701746674&uri=CELEX:32011R1227
[3] ACER, Oct. 2020: https://documents.acer-remit.eu/wp-content/uploads/5th-Edition-ACER-Guidance.pdf
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Written by: Stefan Schröer
Stefan Schröer, Product Manager, Business Unit Utilities is responsible for thought leadership and product development related to SEEBURGER’s trading and reporting technology for the Financial Services and Utilities Industries. Stefan has more than 20 years of business and technology experience working with specific technology initiatives for the Utilities industry, both on-premises and in the cloud. Stefan has been with SEEBURGER since June 2013, and prior to this with various players in the German utilities industry.
