U.K. Regulator Fines Engie Global Markets For Market Manipulation

   By Kim Richters 
 

Ofgem has fined energy trading platform Engie Global Markets around 2.1 million pounds ($2.6 million) for market manipulation, the U.K. energy regulator said Thursday.

Ofgem said that one of the platform's traders had manipulated wholesale gas prices between June and August 2016 to increase trading profits, adding that the trader had engaged in a type of market manipulation called spoofing.

Engie Global Markets is a wholly-owned subsidiary of France's energy company Engie SA (ENGI.FR).

"In November 2016, a market participant alerted Ofgem to suspicious activity on the wholesale gas market for Great Britain," Ofgem said in a statement.

The regulator said "it considers that the company failed to take appropriate measures to prevent or detect the breach from happening." Ofgem had found no evidence of more widespread market manipulation.

The company fully cooperated with the regulator's investigation and had taken measures like increasing surveillance of trading activity, Ofgem said.

Write to Kim Richters at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 05, 2019 05:19 ET (09:19 GMT)

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