What is the definition of inside information (Article 2 REMIT)?

Privileged information" is :

• information of a precise nature
• that has not been made public,
• which concerns, directly or indirectly, one or more wholesale energy trading products
• which, if it were made public, would be likely to have a significant impact on the prices of these wholesale energy trading products.

Assistance in interpreting this definition is provided by ACER in its guide to the application of the REMIT Regulation.

What are the obligations for the publication of inside information (Article 4 REMIT)?

Market participants shall publicly disclose, effectively and in a timely manner, inside information that they hold concerning an undertaking or facilities that the relevant market participant, or its parent or related undertaking, owns or manages or for which the said market participant or undertaking is responsible in operational matters, in whole or in part. Such disclosure shall contain details of the capacity and use of facilities for the production, storage, consumption or transmission of electricity or natural gas or information relating to the capacity and use of LNG facilities, including planned or unplanned unavailability of such facilities.

What is meant by efficient/effective publication?

There are two approaches to effective/efficient publication: 1) publication on an existing platform provided by transmission system operators, energy exchanges or transparency platforms established on the basis of Regulation 714/2009 and 543/2013 ; 2) publication on the website of the market player. In this case, it must be ensured that the information is available to as wide a public as possible. The use of social media can be used as an additional means but not as a substitute for publication on the market player's website. The minimum requirements are : At the IT level:

• Information must be transmitted in a non-discriminatory manner and free of charge;
• the information must be available via a specific RSS feed for the publication of privileged information allowing easy and quick access to the public;
• the information must be available to the public for at least 2 years;
• the information must be available in a European language and in English or only in English;
• minimum unavailability in line with market expectations must be ensured;
• provisions to prevent conflicts of interest with market participants must be put in place by the platforms.

As regards the content of information :

• the time and date of publication ;
• the time and date of the incident;
• if applicable, the name and location of the asset concerned;
• if applicable, the market concerned;
• if applicable, the affected capacity of the asset concerned;
• if applicable, the available capacity of the Asset concerned;
• if applicable, the fuel concerned;
• if applicable, an estimate of the time for the return to partial or total availability of the relevant asset;
• if applicable, the reasons for the unavailability of the relevant asset. If the reason for unavailability is unknown, an update shall be provided until the reason(s) is/are confirmed;
• if applicable, a history of publications concerning the same event; any information necessary for the reader to understand the information.

Please note: any publication of privileged information that is incomplete or incorrect is considered to be an ineffective publication and therefore constitutes a breach of the REMIT regulations.

What are the publication deadlines and exceptions?

Article 4.2 of the REMIT regulation provides for the possibility of deferring the publication of privileged information in the event that the legitimacy of the market player is infringed. Under no circumstances may the market player use undisclosed information and must inform ACER and the national regulator. Article 4.7 also allows the non-disclosure of privileged information, in case it would endanger critical infrastructures as provided for in Article 2 d of Directive 2008/114/EC.

What does market manipulation of inside information (Article 3 REMIT) mean?

Any publication of inside information that is incomplete or incorrect is considered as an ineffective publication and therefore constitutes a breach of the REMIT regulations. Insider energy trading is prohibited (for definition see section 3 REMIT).