March 28 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria’s utilities regulator said that it has imposed a fine of 165,238 levs ($91,487/84,484 euro) on local company Energy Supply after the company was found to have breached EU regulations for trading applicable to the country's wholesale electricity exchange.
Energy Supply was found to have committed breaches by layering and spoofing orders, in contravention of the EU Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT), the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) said in a statement on Monday.
The breaches were committed between January 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022 on the intraday segment of the Independent Bulgarian Energy Exchange (IBEX).
The Bulgarian regulator found that Energy Supply issued fictitious sales orders, thus achieving a brief reduction in the price of certain products solely for its own benefit. Energy Supply then cancelled its sell orders and carried out purchases at the lower prices, generating an unfair profit.
This is the second time that the EWRC has sanctioned an energy company for manipulating the wholesale electricity trading market in the country.
In November last year, the energy regulator levied an aggregate fine of 1.25 million levs on six Bulgarian power companies, including the National Electricity Company (NEK).
EWRC also said it is actively working on other investigations to uncover potential violations of the ban on wholesale energy market manipulation and insider trading.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)