Home Blogs Energy Connections

Energy Connections

ESMA makes interesting point on physical forwards

A contact has pointed out an interesting line in the guidelines published on physical power and gas forwards for dealing with current EU financial regulation. The European Markets and Securities Authority (ESMA) has tried to clear up what is a derivative and what is a physical forward under the first version of the Markets in […]

The difficulty of defining a derivative – part XX

The FT has reported that European authorities are postponing the reporting of all foreign exchange derivatives until MiFID II comes in, in 2017. The problem is agreeing on a definition of what is a derivative, with different countries using differing definitions – something will sound familiar to anyone aware of the debate on physical power and […]

ESMA consults on physical gas and power forwards

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) released the latest installment of the saga on whether physical power and gas forwards are derivatives. If they are, then most over-the-counter trades in power and gas would come within the scope of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation – EMIR. That would mean energy companies would have to […]

Threat to EMIR three-year phasing in of clearing obligation

ESMA has published responses to its consultation on the clearing obligation for credit default swaps under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation or EMIR. For energy companies similar complaints have been written about the current proposal as with interest rate swaps. Under EMIR, energy companies that have a net notional value of their outstanding position above €3bn […]

Deutsche Bank fined for misreporting trades

Consultant Avid Handler blogged about Deutsche Bank being fined £4.7m by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and what it might mean for the energy industry, which now reports some trades under EMIR. The bank was fined for misreporting, erroneously, equity CFD trades under MiFID for several years. So do energy companies need to worry about […]

ESMA publishes EMIR clearing responses

ESMA has just published some responses to its consultation on the clearing obligation for interest rate swaps under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation or EMIR. Some of the responses are concerned the wording in the proposal for the interest rate swaps could mean energy companies would have to start clearing under EMIR sooner than was agreed politically […]

Energy regulation – what lurks beneath

When a deal was hammered out between EU lawmakers that exempted physical power and gas trades from counting as a derivative, the energy industry breathed a sigh of relief as it looked like it had avoided costly mandated clearing. But as this blog will show, that exemption doesn’t leave energy in the clear from regulations […]

Jump to page: